Why Hard Work Doesn’t Always Pay Off
These Four Ingredients Will Help You Get What You Want
We all strive for success. Trying to be a better version of ourselves or the best in whatever we are doing in our career. But when climbing this fictive ladder of success, we see different ingredients that bring us up or down. We all hate the fact that when we achieve something, others tell us it’s because we were lucky. “What about all those hours of hard work, devotion and sacrifice?”, we might ask them. But when we fail at something, we find comfort in the idea that we just missed a bit of luck. It looks as if we perceive either hard work or luck as ingredients for success, or maybe a combination of both.
Hard Work x Luck = Success?
As someone who has spent many years in the emotional rollercoaster of entrepreneurship, I believe this formula tells only half the story. Before proposing my theory, I want to explain what’s wrong with the above.
First of all, hard work is extremely overrated! I see this especially with young professionals who’ve just finished college and brag about the number of hours they make “on the job”. We have this disease in society thinking we all have to work our asses off to become something only 1% becomes. What frustrates me, even more, is how hard work is seen as investing as many hours as possible. I’ll give you an example: During my studies, many of my classmates studied for weeks for an exam. I mostly showed up a week before the exam, making sure I thoroughly went through earlier tests and put 80% of my time on 20% of the most important study material. This way I easily passed exams, leaving others frustrated and thinking I must have cheated or something. The truth is I worked really hard in that last week up until the last seconds before an exam, which resulted in people mockingly call me the “Last-5-Seconds-Guy”. But I put the quality of time invested over its quantity. Even until this day, I rather sleep in, work out in the morning, enjoy a damn good breakfast before trying to be as productive as possible for the remaining hours instead of spending my whole day at the office. Especially entrepreneurs being very passionate about their projects, they seem to mistakingly think that if they put twice the amount of hours, they’ll have twice the amount of chance for success. The only thing they will be successful in is getting a burn-out, failed relationships and an unhealthy lifestyle.
Secondly, nothing pisses me more off when someone compares his or her life with my life and tells me I have certain things because I am lucky and he or she isn’t. The outcomes of my life now and in the future have and always will be greatly influenced by the work I have put into things. To give you an example, the first job I landed after my studies was a well-paid management job. When I told a friend about it, he told me “that I was always so lucky with these things”. This hurt me. First of all, I got to learn about the job during an event with over 200 highly skilled professionals, meaning I certainly wasn’t the only one applying. Second of all and most importantly, my friend totally neglected all the work I had put into extracurricular activities for professional and personal growth. The weeks I wasn’t studying, I was doing stuff like founding a student association, participating in academic research programs, working for a non-profit, founding 2 digital companies and gaining experience through multiple side-jobs and internships. Anyway, I was certainly more than the average college grad and he knew this. But it was so much more convenient for him to think he didn’t have what I had because I was just lucky. Anyone who has started a new project knows how difficult it is, in the beginning, to put yourself out there and tell others you’re spending your evenings on something that isn’t paid and very different from Average-Joe’s evening activities. They might awkwardly tell you: “How good of you”. But then sometime later when you suddenly have success, they are astonished and think: “Wait, where did this come from?” I certainly believe success is like an iceberg. Many people choose not to see what is happening under the water, but then be all surprised when success becomes visible.
A new formula for success
From my point of view, both hard work and luck can be wrongfully interpreted in determining the chances of success. Having had my thing or two experiences in becoming successful and failing hard, I believe there is more than just hard work and luck that gets you where you want. And the best way to describe it is by picturing this analogy:
Life is like a sailing ship. As a captain, you set a direction towards your goal. You can influence the speed and direction of movement by building the biggest and best sail possible. If the wind takes up you’ll reach your destination faster, if it’s coming from the wrong direction it might even slow you down. But the ocean current will always make sure you are moving, slowly, but certainly.
You probably get the gist of the above metaphor where the sailing ship represents your life, but let’s break down the other concepts.
Direction = Goal
The goal you want to reach is the starting point and probably the most important part of getting what you want. Let’s say you choose to start a business in a field that is oversaturated or you have zero experience in, you kind of making it very difficult for yourself. Or maybe it’s something that doesn’t make your heart skip a beat and doesn’t suit your skills and motivation at all, there will be a very big chance you won’t last long enough. As captains, we should know why we want to go somewhere and know our limits and relevant circumstances before we set course.
Sail = Effort
This probably comes closest to what we normally perceive as hard work. Building the best f*cking sail in the world could turn out hugely profitable when the wind picks up. Or like Richard Branson calls it, when luck favours the prepared mind. But what if a storm breaks out and your big sail breaks? It’s not only about the biggest effort, or the number of hours, but about the effort that matches the goal and its circumstances. As a mortal human being with a limited amount of time and energy, choose your effort wisely. Make sure it suits your goal, don’t overkill it and don’t underestimate it.
Wind = Chance
Another concept that might sound familiar, but is very different from luck. Luck is not something we can expect to happen or have an influence on. Chance, on the other hand, is something we can create the right circumstances for (with the right goal setting and effort) and turn into luck when it happens. Otherwise, it might blow away. Winning the lottery is being lucky. Investing years into your pitching skills for that one “elevator” moment is turning chance into luck.
Current = Time
Time is always ticking, but we never seem to have enough of it. Our impatience wants everything to have happened yesterday. But the best entrepreneurs didn’t turn out successful overnight, they have been in the game for a long time. They persevered when things turned ugly and kept going, but most of all they set the right expectations for the right amount of time. As the famous saying goes: People overestimate what they can do in a day, but underestimate what they can accomplish in a decade. Time makes sure we are moving, slowly, but certainly. So don’t underestimate its power in getting where you want!
This brings us to my new formula:
(the right) Goal + (the right) Effort + Chance + Time = Getting what you want
The reason I used the words “the right” is because it’s not about if you have set any goal or just putting some effort, it’s about making sure it fits your context and situation. And getting what you want is a better outcome measure than just mere success as success is a snapshot of a moment and doesn’t automatically mean a long term fulfilment. Furthermore, this formula includes the easily neglected ingredients of goal-setting and patience, by taking the power of time into account. But it also describes a better way of how we should invest the right amount of effort (and not just 100 hours a week, because that seems like a lot) and acknowledge the importance of chance (which again can blow away or turn into your favour based on your preparedness). It gives a fairer way to judge ourselves and others on accomplishments. Now let’s use this formula one some real-world examples.
Applying the formula on Steve Jobs and Bill Gates
If we take a look at extremely successful people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, it’s easy to say chance played a major role in what they accomplished. Looking back, they were exactly at the right place working on the right stuff. But let’s not underestimate the circumstances. Silicon Valley has always been full of bright-minded geeks. Steve and Bill decided to drop out of top universities and not pursue a typical career, but rather build their own companies which was a very risky step. While the world only knew computers in a corporate business setting, they believed in the value of personal computers. They set the right goal. We all know how these 20-somethings were brutally living on the job, having no spare hours for outside activities (which they clearly regretted many years later). But the real effort wasn’t the amount of hours, but how they dealt with setbacks. Steve decided to continue building computers, even after he was ousted out of his own company. This eventually led to his biggest success, because thanks to his work at N. E. X. T. he was asked to return to Apple and turn the almost bankrupt company into the worlds’ most valuable brand. Similarly, Bill’s first company “Traf-O-Data” failed horribly and died a silent death. They set the right effort when it mattered the most and didn’t simply throw in the towel. Furthermore, we all know how chance helped Steve and Bill enormously. It would have worked out completely different if they had started ten years earlier or later. But through their goal and effort, they turned that chance into luck. Many other smart people in the Silicon Valley area didn’t, because their goal was a corporate career path or they stopped after their first setback. And while Steve and Bill became famous as young billionaires, they made their legacy in decades. Apple and Microsoft, through Steve and Bill, re-invented themselves time after time into the pillars we know them as of today.
You might say it’s fairly easy to analyse success when it has already happened. There have been a million other writers who did a better job in analysing successful people. But how many have researched “failed” persons? Therefore, let’s test this formula on failures. For this, I am going through one of my failures, my latest failed startup.
Applying the formula on my own startup failure
After a successful time in Australia, building artificial intelligence products for hospitals, I decided to try it on my own in the Netherlands. With my background in healthcare, knowing the Dutch healthcare system, my ability to develop AI products and proven success in Australia, I thought I had set the right goal. To be able to fully invest the right effort, I decided not to pursue any side-jobs for extra income and devote my full attention to this project. As a believer in staying mindful, I didn’t make 100 hours on the job. It mostly was 4–5 days a week, but if deemed necessary I would even continue working during my holidays with my family (pretty stupid, I know). I believed it was the right effort. The problem I was working on, busy emergency rooms at hospitals, was all over the news. I thought this was my chance or opportunity. I didn’t expect to have a billion-dollar company overnight, but my goal was getting at least 1 to 2 paying customers within a year. Not too much to ask for, right? Eventually, after 2 years, I decided to throw in the towel, disillusioned I had failed. Looking back, this is how I would re-analyse it with today’s knowledge:
By building a product that improved hospital processes, I didn’t feel like I was directly impacting the lives of patients, something very dear to me. The hospital B2B market has probably one of the slowest sales-cycles with a thousand loopholes and forever taking decisions. This meant that 99% of what I was doing was sales, while I thrive from developing and implementing innovative products. Furthermore, knowing myself, this wasn’t the field I could encounter fun and playfulness. The stuff I normally get my energy from. Meaning I hadn’t set the goal that was right for me. When sales didn’t go fast enough, I thought I had to work harder, try harder. Although I knew there wasn’t anything I could do at certain moments, I felt the urge to keep working and investing more hours. This led to restlessness and fatigue, resulting in having sleepless nights. This vicious circle influenced my performance and motivation badly. Strangely, during busy hours we can easily shift into making more hours, but during peaceful periods it’s difficult trying to work fewer hours and spend time on other activities. I didn’t invest my effort wisely. I certainly believe I had created the right circumstances to turn chance into luck, but that opportunity never came. That directly had to do with the fourth element: time. Simply said, my time expectations were completely unrealistic. Due to the fact of me entering the 30’s I was becoming impatient for my “big moment”. Although it’s clear most entrepreneurs turn successful after their thirties, I still felt like I missed out in my twenties. Too much had to happen in too little time. This way, I didn’t even give chance enough time to happen. Ironically enough, after two years suddenly two big hospitals were ready to jump aboard. Chance did happen after all. But for me, it was too late. Partly because my motivation had disappeared due to the bitter taste this failure had left. But most importantly, I had found out this direction didn’t suit me. I was just doing something I thought was good and could be successful. I wasn’t doing it because of intrinsic motivation, it wasn’t something I just loved doing in good or bad times. Therefore I couldn’t cope with the early setbacks, let alone devote 5 or 10 years of my life into it. Looking back, I am happy those potential customers didn’t convert earlier, because this could have never turned into a meaningful ride. This failure taught me at first sight how important it is as a captain to set course in the right direction and never underestimate the power of the moving ocean over time.
Applying the formula to your own life
This new formula has given me more clarity when analysing stuff that happened in the past. But it also gives me some guidance for the future. With that in mind, I believe these are the top takeaways you should take into account for monitoring and planning your next endeavours.
1. Choose a goal or destination for both its wins and losses.
Whichever direction you’ll sail, know you will be in it for the long haul and expect both the wins as sacrifices that come with it. We tend to forget that for every win, a loss will come along. Being a top-athlete might sound interesting. But challenging your physical and mental state of mind while following a strict diet, training protocol for years and being away from friends and family sounds less nice. When sailing your ship towards that sunny destination, expect loneliness, sea-sickness and big storms to come with it. Only then you now if the destination is worth it and if you can survive the journey.
2. Protect your mental health and wellbeing above all when investing effort
In this time and era, where many of us are suffering from mental health problems like depressions and burn-outs, it has never been more important to make the right choices on investing your time and energy. When things don’t seem to work out, we’re easily inclined to push a bit further. But sometimes to get further, we have to take a step back. We are a product of everything we encounter and experience, so by investing in good sleep, healthy relationships, a healthy lifestyle and quality time with friends & family, we can only be our best selves. So always be aware of the paradox, where investing the right time does not mean more time.
3. Chance is not within our control
Sometimes the wind isn’t blowing in our favour, it’s as simple as that. This won’t prohibit us from getting where we want, but will certainly slow things down. Patience is the key in such a situation and trust in the ocean current’s movement that will make sure you’re moving, slowly, but certainly. Similarly, when the wind is blowing in our favour, acknowledge it. Because when it will stop blowing, the sudden stop can be painful. In the past, when fate was favourable, I tended to float in this pink bubble, one in which everything was possible. I got distracted from important matters like setting the right goal and investing the right effort which logically resulted in a very painful drop.
4. Legacies are built over decades
Time is the battle we’ll never win. We want to achieve more and more in a shorter period of time. I laugh when reading stories of early twenty entrepreneurs explaining how they are planning to retire before their 30th. Surely, I wasn’t much different. But most successful entrepreneurs have built their legacy over decades, not over years. Sure, we’ve read the stories of Facebook, Uber, etc, which have become big very fast. But we’ve also read all the bad media publicity they went through, one in which their fast growth played a major role in. There are no short-cuts in life. We have to fail to learn. The millionaire who has become rich over his very first investment, for instance through bitcoin, won’t be smart enough to keep that money or re-invest it for more success. And the worst thing is we haven’t heard about all those millions of others who have lost money through bad investments in cryptocurrencies or many years de-invested in failed startups with too high expectations. The essence of choosing wisely, putting enough effort for longer time-periods is the only certain way you can ever achieve whatever you desire.
5. We are only as good or as bad as to the people we compare ourselves with
If your startup doesn’t lift up as much as your competitor does, it doesn’t only have to do with you. Maybe they had other chances along the way or this wasn’t the right goal for you. Remember, nobody would have known Steve Jobs if he’d have grown up in a small village somewhere in Alaska, no matter his brilliance or hard work. Similarly, we as a society should not measure success as something only 0,001% achieves through businesses or politics. Maybe becoming the best parent for your children might be the biggest success and legacy you could leave in this world. Opposite to failing, winning also has its shadows. Temporary highs through small wins can be hugely addictive and more dangerously could cloud your sight. Many times after certain successes I could pet myself on the back thinking I was more than I thought. I would think I was the major factor leading to my success. Until the wind would change course, and let me tell you that fall will hurt. Never think you have reached your destination, that destination can disappear quickly when tides change. Always be grateful for the journey, make sure your sight isn’t clouded and don’t underestimate your mortality. Too many times I see this with young entrepreneurs thinking they suddenly are all that and start acting differently after their very first wins. Let me tell you, we have been and will always be the same, no matter our successes and losses. Whoever is on the top today can be on the bottom tomorrow or the other way around.
In conclusion, the next time you’re beating yourself up or thinking about reflecting on whatever you are working on, make sure you use the right variables. It’s easy to blame others or luck because you’ve “worked so hard”. Or downgrade others’ hard work through how lucky they always are. You are the captain of your life. You decide where you want to go. You are responsible for creating the right conditions and staying persistent. But a part of getting where you want is out of your control. Therefore, no matter how much our hearts and minds desire, we should never forget that it’s the journey that matters eventually and not the destination.
