The Talent of Making Hard Work Look Easy

"James is a hard worker". While it's meant as a compliment, I don't agree. In high school, it was teachers, coaches, and directors. In college, professors and peers. Since joining the workforce, managers routinely commend my aggressive pace, often labeling me a "hard worker" in performance reviews. On work anniversaries, leaders ping their subordinates with similar messages, "Thanks for all the hard work over the years!" A polite gesture, to be sure.

But if someone tells me I'm working hard and they can see it, it means they're seeing me sweat and struggle. I don't want that. I want to make what I do look easy. I much prefer the compliment more commonly distributed in the world of the performing arts: "You are so talented!"

Talent. The difference between workin' hard and hardly workin’. Talent masks hard work. It's how the Sugar Plum Fairy can perform a solo following a seven-minute pas de deux with the Nutcracker Prince. It's hard work to be sure, but you wouldn't be able to tell by reading her face. Because she's talented. And the talented do one thing better than those who work hard: they make the difficult look easy.

By this point, you're either nodding your head in agreement or scrolling to the comments preparing a defense of your labor. I'm not attacking your labor; I'm trying to reframe it. The work you do and have done is hard. Long hours studying, sweating, stressing, and consuming caffeinated beverages with little regard to the impact on your anxiety. So did our prima ballerina. Countless hours stretching at the barre, perfecting technique over decades, so that the moment she steps on stage, her performance looks so easy that more than one uninitiated audience member begins to believe, "Hey, maybe I could do that." Spoiler: they can't.

Work is hard, and you do work hard. But be more like the Sugar Plum Fairy. Don't let them see you sweat. Let your talents speak for your hard work so that when the time comes, you can take center stage, bow, and wow the audience with a surprisingly easy performance.