Rich People Work Harder ? Not Smarter

I am not a big fan of sequels. “Part 2” never lives up to the original (except for The Empire Strikes Back, of course). But I couldn’t keep this one in any longer. Forgive me.

The truth is that I was humbled by how many people took the time to read The One Sign You Will Be Rich. Over 1,000,000 of you considered my belief that working harder than everyone else is what will set you apart and guarantee wealth in whatever matters to you most.

Many of you responded with support and gratitude, and others suggested that my views were simplistic and/or misguided. I appreciated reading many of your comments — over 2,300 of them. The skeptics also spoke and that’s fair, but what some of them said made me queasy.

I received the following email today from a nice woman and decided to finally respond. She wrote:

Sorry Brian, but working hard does not do it; working smart does.

I immediately recognized this as just another business cliché, but took a few minutes to ponder whether it really had merit. I decided my gut was right, it does not. Let me tell you why.

From my experience being a founder or early employee of six companies and now the CEO of Aha! (visual product roadmap software for product managers) hard work is what separates those who realize wealth from those who obtain mediocrity.

In my experience, “working smarter” is an excuse for those who work less, and want everyone else to still think they are getting a lot done.

Or worse, “working smarter” is how you rationalize “just getting by,” and sweating less than your colleagues. I am not suggesting you avoid seeking efficiencies, which all knowledge-workers should be doing anyway.

"Working smarter” is a fallacy for achieving an abundance of riches when it is the one tool professionals reach for. That's because it becomes a crutch for working less. And working at anything that is really important to you less -- will not allow you to gain an abundance of it. I think that is true for the following reasons:

Do it now -- innovate later
There’s a time and place to be innovative, but usually it’s not when you’ve been given a task. Get it done first, then change the process on your own time. You can roll out the new process after you work out the kinks, and you’ll still be rewarded for your hard work. It’s often faster to just get it done than to dream of smarter ways to work.

Someone is always smarter
There are always people who know more than you do, but hard work is the great equalizer. Mindset is a book that changed how I think about effort. In it, Carol Dweck talks about why talent and brains don’t bring success. There are two basic mindsets, one honoring brains (a fixed mindset), and one honoring effort (a growth mindset).

She asserts: "In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.”

I hope this answers some of the critics, or at least explains my philosophy of success. Working harder than everyone else is the best predictor of who will be rich in what they value most and who will not.

So, what do you think is most important in becoming rich: “working harder” or “working smarter?"

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ABOUT BRIAN AND AHA!

Brian seeks business and wilderness adventure. He has been the founder or early employee of six cloud-based software companies and is the CEO of Aha! -- the world's #1 product roadmap software. His last two companies were acquired by Aruba Networks [ARUN] and Citrix [CTXS].

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