Whether hard work is key to Success

This article tells you about the hard to believe facts about hard work. Actually are you hardworking in the right path? If so why you are not earning well. Read this article to know more about this. Whether hard work is key to success?

Ask any wealthy man the secret of his success, and ten to one he'll say, "Hard work". He has two reasons for saying it.

•    He believes that it is true.

•    He hopes it will inspire other people to work hard, especially if they happen to work for him.

But, of course, it is nonsense. If hard work alone were the route to a fortune, every downtrodden Chinese rice planter, every sweating Bolivian tin miner, every scrawny Indian dung gatherer would be a billionaire.

Most Western people believe that hard work is a virtue in itself, regardless of its outcome. It is a tenet of faith as strong as - in some countries, even stronger than - any of the Ten Commandments.

The State encourages hard work, or would if it knew how. The Church sanctifies it. Individuals admire it, especially when carried out by others.

Historically, this made sense. For centuries, the measure of a man's worth was how many stones he could cut in a day, how many acres he  could scythe, how many bushels he could heft,  how  many horseshoes he could hammer. Apart from prowess in combat, it was the only criterion for advancement.

In pioneering communities, the work imperative was even stronger. You cleared your own forest, yanked your own stumps, planted your own crops, built your own house, dug your own well. You worked hard or, in the harshest environments, you perished.

But in today's world of business, the only certain reward for hard work is - more hard work. Everybody knows the truism, "If you want a job well done, give it to a busy man." But nobody thinks about the obvious corollary, "The harder you work, the more they'll pile onto you."

Hard work can harm your career

 

Does hard work help to advance your career? Not necessarily. Consider, for example, the case of poor old Wilkins there. His desk light bums brightly into the night as he wrestles with the complexities of Export Sales (Unallocated Territories). He knows how to "massage" the relatives of that African dictator, down to the remotest cousin and the smallest percentage. He knows more about the import licensing regulations of the Indian sub-continent than the Indians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans who keep importuning him for credit. He knows about money hedging and how not to get caught with your pesetas down. He knows the bank holidays in Venezuela. F.O.B.s and C.I.F.s, bills of lading and letters of credit are meat and drink to him. He moves paper in quantities that would daunt a bulldozer driver.

And when a promotion - Export Sales Manager, say - crops up, will he get it? No chance.You can imagine the conversation:

"Wilkins? Steady chap. Bit desk-bound though."

"A bit too desk bound, in my view. I can't see him handling a field staff."

"Or entertaining the Sultan of Brunei, ha ha."

"Or getting our new prices past Leathery Fred in Australia."

"Hmm, well..."

"Look, let's be honest. We've no-one else who can nail his job down the way he does. Move Wilkins, and we've no-one to train his placement either. It's tough on him, but..."

"OK, Carstairs it is, then... Lunch, anybody?"

Poor, hard-working Wilkins. So long as he can cope with the deluge he will get no help: companies these days do not work that way. With no help - no assistant to train - he has to keep on coping, no matter how the volume of work increases, because he has no way out. And, by coping single-handed and so getting no increment for "supervision", he might even be earning less than he would if he had two assistants.

There are thousands of Wilkinses, in all sorts of jobs, in all sorts of companies. Week after week they plough on doggedly, coping somehow, neglecting their families, oblivious to the fact that all they are doing is digging themselves into a hole. So plan yourself to work hard in right path. hard work is not the key to success. Its your path which you took for working hard.