Does work ethic really matter?

[MTF]

Nobody cares that you're working hard. It's all about the value you can provide.

If you wanted to dig a pond, would you hire a guy who's working with a spade and a shovel and needs three months to get the job done or a guy who uses an excavator and finishes it in two days?

To you, whether they work hard or not is irrelevant. What's relevant is how fast they can get the job done, how much it costs, and how good they are at digging ponds.

To reiterate, as an entrepreneur, if you want other people to pay attention to what you can do for them, it doesn't matter one iota how hard you work. It matters whether your work adds value or not. You can't advertise your services by telling people how much of a hard worker you are. Nobody cares. You sell your results.

People care about one primary question: "How will this guy's work make my life better?" Not: "How hard is this guy working to make my life better?"

By the way, this post was written with AI's assistance. Do you care how hard I worked at writing this post? Do you care that I made my job easier by using AI vs spending more time using my own brain only? Of course you don't. Because what matters is the value of this post, not how much time and effort it needed to get created.

 

[Andy Black]

Two great lines from Blaise Brosnan:

“The market doesn’t pay for activity.”

“You can’t invoice for input.”

 

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[Prince33]

I know, it sounds ridiculous. But this is the Fastlane forums. Home of the Unscripted so I probably wouldn't post this anywhere else.

I pose this as a question more than a declaration.

I present three scenarios.

X: A father of four. He gets up, takes care of his family. Pays all the bills on time and hasn't been late or missed a day of work his entire life. Lifting, scrubbing, bending, he's an iron worker, building the skyscrapes in the Dubai skyline. Even when he was sick, he went to the bathroom, threw up and went back to work!!! His coworkers call him THE MACHINE!!! But now he's 64 years old and won't retire. He will have to work atleast 5 more years till his youngest turns 18. And even then he may need social security assistance. Oh and nearly every bone in his body needs to be replaced and he can't stand straight anymore from all the iron working.

Z: She has read 10,000 self help books. Took and paid for 75 courses. Started 44 different online businesses. She's a hustler! She works on her business from 4AM(when she gets up) to 11PM everyday! She cold calls, prospects, executes, doesn't action fake. And this has been her life for 21 years. Now she is 64 years old and still hasn't found a way to retire. She's made plenty money. But she still has to keep working.

I'm sure you guys the point. I don't question if working hard is important. My question is, is it really that important to be truly financially independent, especially fastlane? Or dare I say a "hard" work ethic is even required at all?

Y: He read all MJ's book. Enrolled in Fox's Web school right after. After 3 years of working 3 hours a day from his PC while building his youtube channel he then makes 10K a month from what he learned from Fox, MJ's books and his YT channel. He then establishes a productocracy 5 years later on his 5th business and met his escape number. He retires at 27.

Is working hard truly required to be successful in the 2020s?

 

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[ANON29512]

If by working hard you mean investing time, energy, attention, and money into an endeavor, then yes, it's an unskippable part of the process.

This smells like a strawman argument to me.

In my view, in your first two examples, they fail at choosing the right thing to work on.

We can argue that an "ironworker" vs. software engineer both work hard. The latter simply chose to work hard on becoming good at something that's valued by society more, thus he can command a 6-figure salary.

Why?

The 3 biggest reasons:

- Entry/Supply and demand: The supply of software engineers is low. The supply of ironworkers is high. Why? Becoming a software engineer has higher barriers to entry because it's perceived to be harder. People don't like sitting in front of a computer. They don't like stretching their brains. In any case, there is a huge need for competent software engineers and there aren't enough software engineers, which drives up the salaries.

- Scale: Software companies have scale. If a software engineer creates a new feature on Facebook, hundreds of millions of people will benefit from that value. On the other hand, a construction company has a much smaller scale, albeit much higher magnitude. That makes the business Fastlane and owner rich. A single ironworker only serves a couple of hundred tenants in a small way.

- Time: An ironworker has to do the work himself. There's no way to detach himself from his work unless he starts a company where he managed ironworkers like himself.

In your second example, she "Started 44 different online businesses. She's a hustler! She works on her business from 4 AM (when she gets up) to 11PM everyday! She cold calls, prospects, executes, doesn't action fake."

Shiny object syndrome. Not committing to one business until it's a home run. She. Maybe she fails the commandment of entry. Maybe what she provides is not valuable. Maybe she works 16 hour days, but it's busywork that doesn't lead to anywhere.

Case in point, it's not her hard work that's causing her to fail.

The third guy maybe works 3 hours of super productive hours every day. You can't really do deep work for more than 4h a day anyway. He chips away at setting up something of great value. He sets up systems that provide said value and reach thousands of people daily.

I rest my case.

 

[Andy Black]

Work ethic is different from working hard.

Turning up on time is work ethic.

Answering the phone is work ethic.

Doing what you said you’ll do is work ethic.

 

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[Andy Black]

By the way, this post was written with AI's assistance.

I think MTF’s jaw is still on the floor.

 

[Mr4213]

I know, it sounds ridiculous. But this is the Fastlane forums. Home of the Unscripted so I probably wouldn't post this anywhere else.

I pose this as a question more than a declaration.

I present three scenarios.

X: A father of four. He gets up, takes care of his family. Pays all the bills on time and hasn't been late or missed a day of work his entire life. Lifting, scrubbing, bending, he's an iron worker, building the skyscrapes in the Dubai skyline. Even when he was sick, he went to the bathroom, threw up and went back to work!!! His coworkers call him THE MACHINE!!! But now he's 64 years old and won't retire. He will have to work atleast 5 more years till his youngest turns 18. And even then he may need social security assistance. Oh and nearly every bone in his body needs to be replaced and he can't stand straight anymore from all the iron working.

Z: She has read 10,000 self help books. Took and paid for 75 courses. Started 44 different online businesses. She's a hustler! She works on her business from 4AM(when she gets up) to 11PM everyday! She cold calls, prospects, executes, doesn't action fake. And this has been her life for 21 years. Now she is 64 years old and still hasn't found a way to retire. She's made plenty money. But she still has to keep working.

I'm sure you guys the point. I don't question if working hard is important. My question is, is it really that important to be truly financially independent, especially fastlane? Or dare I say a "hard" work ethic is even required at all?

Y: He read all MJ's book. Enrolled in Fox's Web school right after. After 3 years of working 3 hours a day from his PC while building his youtube channel he then makes 10K a month from what he learned from Fox, MJ's books and his YT channel. He then establishes a productocracy 5 years later on his 5th business and met his escape number. He retires at 27.

Is working hard truly required to be successful in the 2020s?

Yes I would say it is extremely important and crucial to success.

I am of the view that how you do one thing is how you do everything.

If you cut corners and make exceptions here and there you will do it for everything.

If I work hard at everything I do then it's logically assumed that I will then work hard at whatever business I pursue but I will also work smart.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

Yes, work ethic absolutely matters.

It’s a simple equation:

(How hard you work) * (How smart you work) = Results

If either of those are zero, you will have zero results.

Ive learned from @MJ DeMarco how to use these mathematical analogies.

From a science standpoint, think about energy expenditure versus work done...

You can push very hard on a wall, using all of your energy, and not move it.

Or you can stand next to it and do nothing.

Either way, the wall doesn’t move.

But come back with a sledgehammer, or better yet, a bulldozer, and you’ll knock through many walls quite quickly...

 

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[biophase]

I know, it sounds ridiculous. But this is the Fastlane forums. Home of the Unscripted so I probably wouldn't post this anywhere else.

I pose this as a question more than a declaration.

I present three scenarios.

X: A father of four. He gets up, takes care of his family. Pays all the bills on time and hasn't been late or missed a day of work his entire life. Lifting, scrubbing, bending, he's an iron worker, building the skyscrapes in the Dubai skyline. Even when he was sick, he went to the bathroom, threw up and went back to work!!! His coworkers call him THE MACHINE!!! But now he's 64 years old and won't retire. He will have to work atleast 5 more years till his youngest turns 18. And even then he may need social security assistance. Oh and nearly every bone in his body needs to be replaced and he can't stand straight anymore from all the iron working.

Z: She has read 10,000 self help books. Took and paid for 75 courses. Started 44 different online businesses. She's a hustler! She works on her business from 4AM(when she gets up) to 11PM everyday! She cold calls, prospects, executes, doesn't action fake. And this has been her life for 21 years. Now she is 64 years old and still hasn't found a way to retire. She's made plenty money. But she still has to keep working.

I'm sure you guys the point. I don't question if working hard is important. My question is, is it really that important to be truly financially independent, especially fastlane? Or dare I say a "hard" work ethic is even required at all?

Y: He read all MJ's book. Enrolled in Fox's Web school right after. After 3 years of working 3 hours a day from his PC while building his youtube channel he then makes 10K a month from what he learned from Fox, MJ's books and his YT channel. He then establishes a productocracy 5 years later on his 5th business and met his escape number. He retires at 27.

Is working hard truly required to be successful in the 2020s?

Work ethic to me just means that you get your work done. If you don’t have it, you won’t be successful whether you are working at McDonalds or a CEO at a large company.

Hard work and work ethic aren’t the same. You aren’t asking the right question because it all depends on what you are working on.

In the examples that you gave all 3 people are working on different things and they are all working hard.

 

[Odysseus M Jones]

"I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." -Bill Gates

I didn't know he said that.

But when I went for interviews & I got that stupid question "what are your best qualities?"

I'd always say "I'm lazy"

Then after the expressions & inevitable "why?" tell them what Billy boy said.

Of course they'd ask "what's your weakness?"

I'd reply "I'm honest"

But yes, you need a strong work ethic, showing up is half the game.

The trick is to work hard but make it look effortless.

An old boss said to me "you f*uck around but you get the job done."

Everything's hard to start with, but you get good at it so it gets easier.

And if it doesn't get easier you're not cut out for it so move on.

Do you want to be the best at what you do or be an also ran?

Just as I finished writing this WJK wrote essentially the same.

Great minds think alike.

Fools seldom differ...

 

[biophase]

Completely agree. That was a big point I was tryin to make. Thus why X man and Z woman both resulted in "still can't retire". It wasn't that they didn't work hard it was that they didn't allocate the efforts of their work correctly to reach their goal. Retirement.

Of course Y did. And of course he had some kind of kind of work ethic.
Never even implied he didn't have to do anything.

But the point in contrast to X & Z, he didn't work hard. At all. In contrast. Furthermore he spent 1/3 of the time as X & Z to get to his retirement goal. In both how many hours per day he worked and when he eventually achieved his goal.

X busted his back, figuratively for decades and ontop of that had a family to be responsible of.
Z got up at 4AM, cold called, prospected, work work worked all the way till nearly midnight for decades.

Y worked 3 hours a day from his desk for less than 1 decade.

That was the point. He worked effectively, and smart. Not 'hard'. Atleast not in the realm of X/Z.

And using what Andy said, working 'hard' wasn't required for Y as long as he had good work ethic.

Exactly! Completely agree.

Even though I feel a level of preparedness could have saved you that ordeal in that scenario, yes. You need to know how to work hard to be ready for when the universe throws you a curve ball.

Great points WJK.
" In these cases, each needs to learn how to take care of their money that they have made in order to transition to the next step. "

Pretty much sums up their plight in one sentence.

Well I didn't spend too much detail on what they did with their money. But I was thinking that X, Y, & Z all wanted to reach an 'escape' number to retire. X & Z had to keep working not necessarily because they were bad with money. Although surely has to be some errors in there. But moreso they thought as long as they worked hard and keep working "one day I'll retire rich!".

That's the whole point. Was basically just trying to relate X & Z to the average American's mentality. Especially for X. Now that you bring up money management; it's going to be very hard even as an iron worker.

You said Iron Worker's make good money. ANd that's true... if X was single.
This show's salaries for iron workers. The top 20% make 90Kish at the most.

After taxes you're looking at 70Kish. No way X is going to retire with millions needed to retire him and have money in the bank for his 4 kids and wife; bringing in 70K after taxes. Considering I'd argue atleast 70% of that goes into the family and living expenses.

Edit: I don't know investment math so had to re-run all my numbers.

So he's saving 21K a year. Just working hard and saving 21K a year...
However in the trades you don't hit your peak till atleast 5-9 years in. If not 10+ but lets say 9. He started at 25, started making 90K at 34... He's 64 now. 30 years.

End Balance$2,590,263.23
Starting Amount $21,000.00
Total Contributions $630,000.00
Total Interest$1,939,263.23
@ 8% returns

So if all that actually follows out, it is possible he can retire with 2.5M at 64.
Which is 518,000 per person in the family.

So if he planned things well and if the stock market and all that actually stayed static all those years sure.
But that would require additional planning than just work work work. And setting aside money, and even then it took him 3 decades, and horrible health. Contrast that to Y or even Z.

Congralutions X, you're a millionaire! Now you can actually spend the last 5 years of your life (on average) with your now nearly grown adult offspring.

That's the long description to the point I'm trying to make with this thread.
You can have all the work journals, back busting hours invested and even be in a good paying field. But that is not enough or even required to be successful financially if freedom is the goal.

The same can apply to Z even if she was making 100,000 a year (75K after taxes)

Yes you can argue X should not have had kids yet then (especially 4!) if his finances weren't together. But that's a whoooole 'nother topic.

I think what you’re really trying to say is that if it doesn’t matter if all 3 work hard. What matters is if one person made $15/hr and another $50/hr and the third $500/hr.

And on top of that, it matters how they managed their money.

After 10 years it’s certainly possible that the person that made $50 an hour has retired while the one making $500 an hour is still a slave to his job or business.

And in all cases they will be way ahead of the person that was lazy and didn’t work at all.

 

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[Prince33]

If by working hard you mean investing time, energy, attention, and money into an endeavor, then yes, it's an unskippable part of the process.

This smells like a strawman argument to me.

In my view, in your first two examples, they fail at choosing the right thing to work on.

We can argue that an "ironworker" vs. software engineer both work hard. The latter simply chose to work hard on becoming good at something that's valued by society more, thus he can command a 6-figure salary.

Why?

The 3 biggest reasons:

- Entry/Supply and demand: The supply of software engineers is low. The supply of ironworkers is high. Why? Becoming a software engineer has higher barriers to entry because it's perceived to be harder. People don't like sitting in front of a computer. They don't like stretching their brains. In any case, there is a huge need for competent software engineers and there aren't enough software engineers, which drives up the salaries.

- Scale: Software companies have scale. If a software engineer creates a new feature on Facebook, hundreds of millions of people will benefit from that value. On the other hand, a construction company has a much smaller scale, albeit much higher magnitude. That makes the business Fastlane and owner rich. A single ironworker only serves a couple of hundred tenants in a small way.

- Time: An ironworker has to do the work himself. There's no way to detach himself from his work unless he starts a company where he managed ironworkers like himself.

In your second example, she "Started 44 different online businesses. She's a hustler! She works on her business from 4 AM (when she gets up) to 11PM everyday! She cold calls, prospects, executes, doesn't action fake."

Shiny object syndrome. Not committing to one business until it's a home run. She. Maybe she fails the commandment of entry. Maybe what she provides is not valuable. Maybe she works 16 hour days, but it's busywork that doesn't lead to anywhere.

Case in point, it's not her hard work that's causing her to fail.

The third guy maybe works 3 hours of super productive hours every day. You can't really do deep work for more than 4h a day anyway. He chips away at setting up something of great value. He sets up systems that provide said value and reach thousands of people daily.

I rest my case.

Exactly, thanks, that was my point. The principle was that working hard was not a significant factor in if they became successful enough to retire. I completely agree with the fact that only one of those are more in demand, scalable and earns more. That's the very basics of MJ's books. But, as you can see in the second example she still was not able to retire. Though not a software engineer she had a similar skill set and surely could have been one. But her "hard work" resulted in her having the same outcome as the ironworker by 64 years old. She may have made more if she was one, but the outcome would've been similar.

And as far as why she was not successful in retiring, I completely agree with you. Shiny object syndrome amongst other things was a factor in why she was not successful.

But my point remains. If you define time, attention, and energy, as hard work then scenario 3 did the same exact thing as the first two. By that definition. But the point is he did not have to work as much as the other two, and steel accomplished his goal to retire. So it's not all about time, attention, and energy. That's my point. I wouldn't say it's a straw man, I'd say it's real world examples with real-world outcomes.

So knowing that time, attention and energy aren't the only factors that matter. And we both agree working on the "right" thing is much more important. I ask again. Is working "hard" truly necessary?

Well I believe the goal is ultimately separation of time from the business.

You shouldn't end up in some maintenence mode where you are trying or having to watch over every single detail of the business.

To me that would mean the entrepreneur made a mistake in the process at some point.

Completely agree.

Nobody cares that you're working hard. It's all about the value you can provide.

If you wanted to dig a pond, would you hire a guy who's working with a spade and a shovel and needs three months to get the job done or a guy who uses an excavator and finishes it in two days?

To you, whether they work hard or not is irrelevant. What's relevant is how fast they can get the job done, how much it costs, and how good they are at digging ponds.

To reiterate, as an entrepreneur, if you want other people to pay attention to what you can do for them, it doesn't matter one iota how hard you work. It matters whether your work adds value or not. You can't advertise your services by telling people how much of a hard worker you are. Nobody cares. You sell your results.

People care about one primary question: "How will this guy's work make my life better?" Not: "How hard is this guy working to make my life better?"

By the way, this post was written with AI's assistance. Do you care how hard I worked at writing this post? Do you care that I made my job easier by using AI vs spending more time using my own brain only? Of course you don't. Because what matters is the value of this post, not how much time and effort it needed to get created.

Couldn't have said it better myself. What value you provide and how hard you work are like two ingredients in a ultimate recipe. But I'd say working hard world be the toppings in this simile. If that makes sense.

Also, love your pfp. It's inspiring.

No pink slip in the equation?

Pink slip?

Two great lines from Blaise Brosnan:

“The market doesn’t pay for activity.”

“You can’t invoice for input.”

Indubitably. What the marker values may be a byproduct of your activity. But the activity itself it doesn't care about, just as MTF just said above.

Is Mathematics we call it “necessary but not sufficient condition”.

The way I see it is you can never see the future fully, and once you identify an opportunity, the only way to test if it will work is to give it your best shot. Hardwork is the necessary price for the value hypothesis testing, that you can create enough value in a sector in form the form of having paying customers that will give you sufficient profit above cost to accumulate wealth quickly.

To give a more exaggerated example you sensed that gold is at a spot, you take out your tools and dig at the spot, after a few hours or days of digging you found nothing. Could you literally dismiss that hardwork is irrelevant that you life would be better spent sleeping for the past few days? Surely not.

Exactly, I do agree that hard work teaches you valuable lessons when you fail. But I don't think the hard work itself was the most important thing. It was moreso the knowledge you gained in what not to do because your hard work didn't pan out to what you expected.

But as we are establishing already in this thread; knowledge and knowing what's right to work on is the key, not the hard work. But you bring up a very wise connection in the sense that hard work and knowing what's right can be connected. But you must be privy, and even then it isn't the most important thing, still.

You could go back to that same biome and know now you can dig somewhere else. But now you know where to dig. So you don't have to dig as "hard". If that makes sense.

But like Itizn said, if you do work harder you can possibly get there sooner. Although we all know going max speed at something in business doesn't always mean better. Especially when realted to health.

 

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[The_MoBiz]

Work ethic is hugely important. I think the problem is that a lot of people don't figure out how to leverage their work ethic properly.

 

[DavidL41]

I know, it sounds ridiculous. But this is the Fastlane forums. Home of the Unscripted so I probably wouldn't post this anywhere else.

I pose this as a question more than a declaration.

I present three scenarios.

X: A father of four. He gets up, takes care of his family. Pays all the bills on time and hasn't been late or missed a day of work his entire life. Lifting, scrubbing, bending, he's an iron worker, building the skyscrapes in the Dubai skyline. Even when he was sick, he went to the bathroom, threw up and went back to work!!! His coworkers call him THE MACHINE!!! But now he's 64 years old and won't retire. He will have to work atleast 5 more years till his youngest turns 18. And even then he may need social security assistance. Oh and nearly every bone in his body needs to be replaced and he can't stand straight anymore from all the iron working.

Z: She has read 10,000 self help books. Took and paid for 75 courses. Started 44 different online businesses. She's a hustler! She works on her business from 4AM(when she gets up) to 11PM everyday! She cold calls, prospects, executes, doesn't action fake. And this has been her life for 21 years. Now she is 64 years old and still hasn't found a way to retire. She's made plenty money. But she still has to keep working.

I'm sure you guys the point. I don't question if working hard is important. My question is, is it really that important to be truly financially independent, especially fastlane? Or dare I say a "hard" work ethic is even required at all?

Y: He read all MJ's book. Enrolled in Fox's Web school right after. After 3 years of working 3 hours a day from his PC while building his youtube channel he then makes 10K a month from what he learned from Fox, MJ's books and his YT channel. He then establishes a productocracy 5 years later on his 5th business and met his escape number. He retires at 27.

Is working hard truly required to be successful in the 2020s?

efficacy is everything. How effective you are is key. I would also include consistency, and efficiency. Overall I would say effectiveness is the thing that is the secret to excel. The difference between the low mid tier nba player and the top tier nba players is being more effective at scoring even in tough scenarios, especially in easy situations. Efficiency and consistency are still mandatory, though effectiveness imo is weighted far more. There are many top tier nba players that are not super consistent, or super efficient yet they are still up there because they can go on 12 point scoring streaks. The best of the best have it all in spades. The take away is that effectiveness is weighted more in most cases. I have $3 of knife material how can I make that into a $60 knife. Have a skilled japanese craftsman make a no thrill knife have as good cutting quality as a high tier $100 knife. Are they more efficient in that case than another pro knife maker probably not, are the japanese knife makers more consistent maybe a bit, but are they going to be able to make that knife cut more effectively that the german knife makers, yes. On the other side of the coin, the German knife maker make a more luxurious knife than the Japanese.

Hustling is correlated but it is not causation. High school basketball players can hustle. I believe it is about a deeper knowledge, capability, and execution which allows for optimal results.

I am also starting to think strategy is readjusting the business model to fit the current situation. It's a lot of the analysis and coming up with a potential way to succeed like a sports coach. All that is nothing if the team can not perform. Optimal execution or efficacy is everything.

Does your business have the appropriate resources(capital, asset). Do you have good capability(superior expertise, proprietary technology). One does not need to be this high level. They just need to have an advantage over the competitors. A wnba player just has to be more optimal than her peers. Again, I believe effectiveness is crucial, it is what builds a competitive advantage to out dominate the average and high level competitors.

 

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[WJK]

I know, it sounds ridiculous. But this is the Fastlane forums. Home of the Unscripted so I probably wouldn't post this anywhere else.

I pose this as a question more than a declaration.

I present three scenarios.

X: A father of four. He gets up, takes care of his family. Pays all the bills on time and hasn't been late or missed a day of work his entire life. Lifting, scrubbing, bending, he's an iron worker, building the skyscrapes in the Dubai skyline. Even when he was sick, he went to the bathroom, threw up and went back to work!!! His coworkers call him THE MACHINE!!! But now he's 64 years old and won't retire. He will have to work atleast 5 more years till his youngest turns 18. And even then he may need social security assistance. Oh and nearly every bone in his body needs to be replaced and he can't stand straight anymore from all the iron working.

Z: She has read 10,000 self help books. Took and paid for 75 courses. Started 44 different online businesses. She's a hustler! She works on her business from 4AM(when she gets up) to 11PM everyday! She cold calls, prospects, executes, doesn't action fake. And this has been her life for 21 years. Now she is 64 years old and still hasn't found a way to retire. She's made plenty money. But she still has to keep working.

I'm sure you guys the point. I don't question if working hard is important. My question is, is it really that important to be truly financially independent, especially fastlane? Or dare I say a "hard" work ethic is even required at all?

Y: He read all MJ's book. Enrolled in Fox's Web school right after. After 3 years of working 3 hours a day from his PC while building his youtube channel he then makes 10K a month from what he learned from Fox, MJ's books and his YT channel. He then establishes a productocracy 5 years later on his 5th business and met his escape number. He retires at 27.

Is working hard truly required to be successful in the 2020s?

I'm not sure that you are asking the right question -- or maybe not asking it in the most productive way...

MJ had a whole string of failures during his learning curve. So have I.
And when I do something new, I usually fail a few times. It's hard work to go through all those levels of learning. It's not remotely enjoyable until I get good at that job. And it's sure not my passion.

I think we need to go back to basics in that curve:
1. You don't know that you don't know.
2. You know that you don't know and you want to try.
3. You try it and it is very difficult.
4. You can do it, but it still a lot of work.
5. You can do it so well that you make it look easy. You're an expert and everyone who watches, think they can do it too.

You're guy Y has it down. He's making it look easy. I bet it wasn't always that way. I bet he had a learning curve too. (Also, most that I know of have a time line where they try out ideas. If they work, they continue. If they don't, Next.) When he started the making the $10 per month, he controlled his spending and then transitioned to the productocity stage -- which he used to gain his escape number -- which is an investment program. There's several sets of skills there at which he had to gain expertise.

Your Z lady & X man have a lot in common. They each working at different parts of the job market, but they are working the same plan -- rather than the plan working for them. They are stuck in their modes. The X man is undoubtedly excellent at his iron work. And the Z lady is good at making her calls & contacts... but they are each stuck in roles unable to see the bigger picture. In these cases, each needs to learn how to take care of their money that they have made in order to transition to the next step. And that is where they should learn to scale and/or be investors. Iron workers make good money. You said that your Z lady made good money. Obviously, their spending and money management hasn't measured up to allow them to take the next step.

 

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[DavidL41]

You missed my point. The answer to this life choice is not binary. I'm saying that he the iron worker (or the business woman) should totally rely on savings to make his next egg. That is not a stand-alone plan that works. I said that he should use that income to take the next step. He could have used his expertise to start a side business. He could have invested in real estate. He could have become a iron contractor or component supplier. He could have invented a new tool or technique to work in the iron business.

Having a family is a factor -- not a barrier. I know. I have raised two families over the years. Plus I supported my mom and physically cared for her for the last 10 years of her life.

If the goal is to do it as safe as possible they both can do a side job during the weekend and after work, plus heavily save, and safely invest their money better. The second option is to bootstrap a side business and make the leap to the business full time after it is on the path to out pace their job's salary. In either case they want to safely invest personal income into assets once they have a nest egg.

The fast lane is to take superior expertise than average or top competitors(effectiveness, efficiency, consistency), and outcompete/dominate the competition to capture opportunity or customers for superior profit and growth. And of course invest personal income optimally.

 

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[DavidL41]

And at times, it takes a related group of business interests to win that race. I have a core business and then related businesses that create what I call my "dribble" incomes. They support the core business while creating smaller income streams -- that I combine with the cash flow from my core business. (An example of this concept is my little self-service Laundromat, which provides services my tenants for my residential rental business.)

Back to the idea of work ethics -- I work hard. I have daily chores to keep everything going. Some days run very long. BUT, I make it look easy. Tenants have told me that all I do is sit around and collect my rents. They only see what I want them to see.

Yes, I think achieving as much roi out of each asset/business is key. If it's a business run it efficient, effective, consistent, strategically, all in all run it optimally to achieve the most roi.

The trick of it seems to be figure out what average ability is. Go above average. Then top 10%. Top 1% and so on. The more capable the entrepreneur is over the competition the more likely a business will succeed/cashflow. Bootstrapping over a series of ventures will eventually land one that 'pays out'. Then repeat over and over. If a person has the money they can go to already cash flowing businesses/franchises and real estate that always or almost always achieves a steady roi.

 

[Mr4213]

True, I like that idea.
But I also learned that there is a limit for how much you maintenance at once as well. It's like security. You can't keep up with every detail of every person on every monitor in the surveillance room.

I understand where you're coming from. But the woman from Scenario Z could've been thinking that exact thing with all her businesses. "Im gonna explore every angle and just keep workin' it! Its been 20 years but as long as I...."

Well I believe the goal is ultimately separation of time from the business.

You shouldn't end up in some maintenence mode where you are trying or having to watch over every single detail of the business.

To me that would mean the entrepreneur made a mistake in the process at some point.

 

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[Kevin88660]

I know, it sounds ridiculous. But this is the Fastlane forums. Home of the Unscripted so I probably wouldn't post this anywhere else.

I pose this as a question more than a declaration.

I present three scenarios.

X: A father of four. He gets up, takes care of his family. Pays all the bills on time and hasn't been late or missed a day of work his entire life. Lifting, scrubbing, bending, he's an iron worker, building the skyscrapes in the Dubai skyline. Even when he was sick, he went to the bathroom, threw up and went back to work!!! His coworkers call him THE MACHINE!!! But now he's 64 years old and won't retire. He will have to work atleast 5 more years till his youngest turns 18. And even then he may need social security assistance. Oh and nearly every bone in his body needs to be replaced and he can't stand straight anymore from all the iron working.

Z: She has read 10,000 self help books. Took and paid for 75 courses. Started 44 different online businesses. She's a hustler! She works on her business from 4AM(when she gets up) to 11PM everyday! She cold calls, prospects, executes, doesn't action fake. And this has been her life for 21 years. Now she is 64 years old and still hasn't found a way to retire. She's made plenty money. But she still has to keep working.

I'm sure you guys the point. I don't question if working hard is important. My question is, is it really that important to be truly financially independent, especially fastlane? Or dare I say a "hard" work ethic is even required at all?

Y: He read all MJ's book. Enrolled in Fox's Web school right after. After 3 years of working 3 hours a day from his PC while building his youtube channel he then makes 10K a month from what he learned from Fox, MJ's books and his YT channel. He then establishes a productocracy 5 years later on his 5th business and met his escape number. He retires at 27.

Is working hard truly required to be successful in the 2020s?

Is Mathematics we call it “necessary but not sufficient condition”.

The way I see it is you can never see the future fully, and once you identify an opportunity, the only way to test if it will work is to give it your best shot. Hardwork is the necessary price for the value hypothesis testing, that you can create enough value in a sector in form the form of having paying customers that will give you sufficient profit above cost to accumulate wealth quickly.

To give a more exaggerated example you sensed that gold is at a spot, you take out your tools and dig at the spot, after a few hours or days of digging you found nothing. Could you literally dismiss that hardwork is irrelevant that you life would be better spent sleeping for the past few days? Surely not.

 

[Prince33]

Great intel Ken! Definitely gonna check that blogpost out.

Edit: I saw this quote on your blog post.

"I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." -Bill Gates

Also in Aaron Clarey's "How not to become a millennial" book. He talks about the demise of Millennials (mostly in college) being that they hard it harder in life trying to find the "easy way out". But ended up working harder in the long run.

Why major in something hard like STEM and do all that math and studying when you can have it easy? Major in English and get a easy job and just hope you can find something high paying! You went to college so theres gotta be something out there!

So then they either end up having to get a basic job that didnt even need a degree or go back to school. Best case scenario they get a job with the English degree but it isnt the high salary they hoped in contrast to a STEM major.

So now you gotta go back to school and spend another 2-4 years, go deeper into debt and/or work some years before you can even go back because you have debt and wantto pay that off first. You also didnt do your research and didnt know the job prospects werent there. (not aiming for the right thing)

When alllll this could've been avoided had you simply just did the harder major from the jump and got what you wanted.

That's pretty much the premise of his main point against why most failed in formal education since only 20% majored in STEM.

"There's only two options in life. The hard way, and the really hard way. The really hard way disguises itself as 'easy'. And the hard way disguises itself as 'hard', but is actually the easy way." -Aaron Clarey

 

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[Devampre]

Y still had to work and provide value. Without some level of work ethic, they would be doomed to fail.

Sure they didn't have to work under an employer or perhaps as hard relatively when compared to other people. But, it is foolish to think they didn't have to do anything.

Work hard, work smart and make choices that best align with the life you want to live.

 

[frenki]

Two great lines from Blaise Brosnan:

“The market doesn’t pay for activity.”

“You can’t invoice for input.”

Best thing I've read all month!

 

[Itizn]

The past few weeks have been slow for me. Despite dialogue between former and prospective clients, there has a been a downturn in revenue generating activity.

My business is still very young and I don't quite know how to best ride these waves of "inactivity"

Since my business model caters to numerous businesses (within a niche) across the continental united states, my remedy tends to be either

-Talk to more people, people I've yet to reach out to.

And alternatively

- Circle back to everyone who I've ever done business with, or at the very least who I engaged in dialogue with.

Still not sure which route is better for me and my business, as again it is still in its early stages, but without work ethic it'll be hard to find the right answers.

My p.o.v. anyway...

 

[inabox1]

Yes, it does.

Here's a system I use to stay on track that works very well for me:

Journal

-----

The Left Page​

On Monday at the top of the page, make a 'weekly brain dump' - a list of all of the major/minor tasks you NEED to get done that week.

Below this, write out your goals. I structure mine as:

1 MONTH: AUGUST
--Close X Deals--

2 MONTH: SEPTEMBER
--Biz 1 £X/mo--

3 MONTH: OCTOBER
--1 Mo Emergency Fund--

6 MONTH: JANUARY
--Biz 1 £X/mo income.--
--3 Mo Emergency Fund--

2 YEARS
- Las Vegas Apartment
- Biz 1 £100k/yr+
- Biz 2 Launch

5 YEARS
- Location Freedom
- Biz 1 £200k/yr+
- Biz 2 £100k/yr+

-----

The Right Page​

Here you list out no less than 3, and no more than 5 things that you HAVE to do. At the start of each day, pick one of the 'weekly brain dump' items and put it in/break it down into a step where you put it on that day's do to list. For me, I like to write the day's to-do list in the morning after I wake up. Write them down in a hierarchy of importance. Here's an example of yesterday's work:

FRIDAY
1. Build Cold Call List <-- My main task.
2. Post Biz in local FB Groups <-- Secondary task. Important, but not vital.
3. Practice Sales Pitch (USP's) <-- Secondary task. Important, but not vital.
4. Read Chapter 3 of Influence <-- Not vital.

-----​

Every morning when you open your journal, take 2 mins to look over and visualise your goals. Then fill out your tasks for that day. Now, go ahead and do the work.

If you hit all of your goals for that day/week - great! Treat yourself.

If you don't, bring out your inner masochist and punish yourself. No video games for the week, no takeaway, forced 10k run, etc.

Every week keep pushing yourself to do more and more. Start off with simple, easy tasks. Gradually build until you have to do deep, focused work to cross off the tasks for that day.

Hope this helps.

 

[DavidL41]

The past few weeks have been slow for me. Despite dialogue between former and prospective clients, there has a been a downturn in revenue generating activity.

My business is still very young and I don't quite know how to best ride these waves of "inactivity"

Since my business model caters to numerous businesses (within a niche) across the continental united states, my remedy tends to be either

-Talk to more people, people I've yet to reach out to.

And alternatively

- Circle back to everyone who I've ever done business with, or at the very least who I engaged in dialogue with.

Still not sure which route is better for me and my business, as again it is still in its early stages, but without work ethic it'll be hard to find the right answers.

My p.o.v. anyway...

I think early on the idea is to tighten up the operational efficiency(formal term: operational excellence) aka less time, and money wasted. Then it is to build up the product leadership(top tier product), and customer intimacy(being more tailored to customers). Balancing where they want to focus their efforts. In general 2 of the 3 are average or above average, and one of them is far above average. Those three things are the value disciplines. Also, building up resources, capability, and competitive advantage.

Imo, a business needs to in general build up everything in order to reach a competitive advantage that allows for superior value proposition and superior profit.

 

[DavidL41]

Completely agree. That was a big point I was tryin to make. Thus why X man and Z woman both resulted in "still can't retire". It wasn't that they didn't work hard it was that they didn't allocate the efforts of their work correctly to reach their goal. Retirement.

Of course Y did. And of course he had some kind of kind of work ethic.
Never even implied he didn't have to do anything.

But the point in contrast to X & Z, he didn't work hard. At all. In contrast. Furthermore he spent 1/3 of the time as X & Z to get to his retirement goal. In both how many hours per day he worked and when he eventually achieved his goal.

X busted his back, figuratively for decades and ontop of that had a family to be responsible of.
Z got up at 4AM, cold called, prospected, work work worked all the way till nearly midnight for decades.

Y worked 3 hours a day from his desk for less than 1 decade.

That was the point. He worked effectively, and smart. Not 'hard'. Atleast not in the realm of X/Z.

And using what Andy said, working 'hard' wasn't required for Y as long as he had good work ethic.

Exactly! Completely agree.

Even though I feel a level of preparedness could have saved you that ordeal in that scenario, yes. You need to know how to work hard to be ready for when the universe throws you a curve ball.

Great points WJK.
" In these cases, each needs to learn how to take care of their money that they have made in order to transition to the next step. "

Pretty much sums up their plight in one sentence.

Well I didn't spend too much detail on what they did with their money. But I was thinking that X, Y, & Z all wanted to reach an 'escape' number to retire. X & Z had to keep working not necessarily because they were bad with money. Although surely has to be some errors in there. But moreso they thought as long as they worked hard and keep working "one day I'll retire rich!".

That's the whole point. Was basically just trying to relate X & Z to the average American's mentality. Especially for X. Now that you bring up money management; it's going to be very hard even as an iron worker.

You said Iron Worker's make good money. ANd that's true... if X was single.
This show's salaries for iron workers. The top 20% make 90Kish at the most.

After taxes you're looking at 70Kish. No way X is going to retire with millions needed to retire him and have money in the bank for his 4 kids and wife; bringing in 70K after taxes. Considering I'd argue atleast 70% of that goes into the family and living expenses.

Edit: I don't know investment math so had to re-run all my numbers.

So he's saving 21K a year. Just working hard and saving 21K a year...
However in the trades you don't hit your peak till atleast 5-9 years in. If not 10+ but lets say 9. He started at 25, started making 90K at 34... He's 64 now. 30 years.

End Balance$2,590,263.23
Starting Amount $21,000.00
Total Contributions $630,000.00
Total Interest$1,939,263.23
@ 8% returns

So if all that actually follows out, it is possible he can retire with 2.5M at 64.
Which is 518,000 per person in the family.

So if he planned things well and if the stock market and all that actually stayed static all those years sure.
But that would require additional planning than just work work work. And setting aside money, and even then it took him 3 decades, and horrible health. Contrast that to Y or even Z.

Congralutions X, you're a millionaire! Now you can actually spend the last 5 years of your life (on average) with your now nearly grown adult offspring.

That's the long description to the point I'm trying to make with this thread.
You can have all the work journals, back busting hours invested and even be in a good paying field. But that is not enough or even required to be successful financially if freedom is the goal.

The same can apply to Z even if she was making 100,000 a year (75K after taxes)

Yes you can argue X should not have had kids yet then (especially 4!) if his finances weren't together. But that's a whoooole 'nother topic.

X could have invested in real estate very early on. If the wife is working then they are doing very well. If not they are still doing well. Tbh, it's a very very good outcome. It's just the scenic route and not the top of the heap.

Entrepreneurship allows for heavy return on investments(profits raise very high). Those personal profits from those investments can be reinvested, and compounded over and over(your money in your bank can make money like in realestate, franchises, or bootstrapping or buying more businesses). There are multiple revenue streams. Business(es) makes you money. Real estate makes you money. And so on.

Those with the capability/expertise to capitalize on ideal situations/opportunity can keep snowballing exponentially. If a person can not be capable enough to be above average business owner then they of course they have to work for an employer and try a bunch of different bootstrap businesses till they luckily hit on something. Continually riding those tiny waves(a below average entrepreneur can even succeed there) A job is very secure, and good for building up savings. I believe the goal is to either boot strap business(es), or to build up a nest nest egg from their regular job to reinvest in real estate, reliable franchises/reliable small business, buy or bootstrap small business, and so on. At the end of the day get to a desirable outcome.

 

[WJK]

If the goal is to do it as safe as possible they both can do a side job during the weekend and after work, plus heavily save, and safely invest their money better. The second option is to bootstrap a side business and make the leap to the business full time after it is on the path to out pace their job's salary. In either case they want to safely invest personal income into assets once they have a nest egg.

The fast lane is to take superior expertise than average or top competitors(effectiveness, efficiency, consistency), and outcompete/dominate the competition to capture opportunity or customers for superior profit and growth. And of course invest personal income optimally.

And at times, it takes a related group of business interests to win that race. I have a core business and then related businesses that create what I call my "dribble" incomes. They support the core business while creating smaller income streams -- that I combine with the cash flow from my core business. (An example of this concept is my little self-service Laundromat, which provides services my tenants for my residential rental business.)

Back to the idea of work ethics -- I work hard. I have daily chores to keep everything going. Some days run very long. BUT, I make it look easy. Tenants have told me that all I do is sit around and collect my rents. They only see what I want them to see.

 

[WJK]

Yes, I think achieving as much roi out of each asset/business is key. If it's a business run it efficient, effective, consistent, strategically, all in all run it optimally to achieve the most roi.

The trick of it seems to be figure out what average ability is. Go above average. Then top 10%. Top 1% and so on. The more capable the entrepreneur is over the competition the more likely a business will succeed/cashflow. Bootstrapping over a series of ventures will eventually land one that 'pays out'. Then repeat over and over. If a person has the money they can go to already cash flowing businesses/franchises and real estate that always or almost always achieves a steady roi.

I know that my success in my businesses is based upon my hard work, reputation, and personality.

I had a young lady tell me yesterday that she was unexpectedly moving out of one of my mobile homes today. I have an appointment tomorrow at 2 PM to rent it. I know the new renters. They were on my waiting list. Yes, we'll take a couple days to clean it up. But, it will be a quick turn-around. They really need housing due to a non-functioning septic system where they are living right now. The wife cried when I told her I have unit for her. People in our community know that we do the necessary repairs in a timely manner. And I have the only group of affordable housing in our area.

But, years ago, when I took over the mobile home park, it was trashed. My parents had sold it a couple years before that and they had unfortunately carried the paper. The buyer did hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. Then he gave it back to my elderly parents, who didn't know what to do. They didn't have the resources to do the repairs. It was losing piles of money every month. I had every bad guy in the area living here. I had to evict them one after another. The property's reputation was horrible. I couldn't rent any of the mobile homes -- even on a good day. And I was living in Los Angeles, 6,000 miles away.

The turn around took lots of cash, work (sweat equity), and time. (Mom didn't live long enough to see the property put back together, but Dad did.) It's grown into a community within our larger community. Many days I feel like I have built something bigger than myself. But I also know that my daily work ethics are necessary for the success to carry on...

 

[WJK]

That wasn't the point of the question nor post, at all. Also people in the real world who just work work work are way more common than those that save, budget and allocate funds to scale their income. So if anything your story is more make believe. (Even the stats show that). Don't even get me started on lifestyle choices. (car loans, credit, mortgage...) If X was a 'realistic' story, at 25 he would've financed the latest car, one for him and his wife, moved in a nice house with barely any money down on a sub-prime mortgage loan, so now itll take decades to pay the house off plus have more kid(s) he may or may not be able to afford once he got a 'raise'. Pension or not.

My point was if raw work ethic can achieve freedom or a financial goal. Not is it possible to retire and/or earn financial freedom as a ___. If that's the case we can talk about how flipping Pokemon cards at 10 years old can turn you into a multi-millionaire. May take some time but anything is possible with the right mindset. MJ's book is literally called unscripted . If you're unscripted and have the knowledge you can get wealthy(time) doing anything, wasn't my point.


That's the result of their different outcomes yes but I wouldn't say that's the point. But perhaps in principal yeah.

BUT-- you are confusing two parts of the problem -- making the money -- making it grow and keeping it for the future. It doesn't matter how much money you make or how you make it. You will be broke in no time IF you can't manage that pile of cash and your spending. Think about the lottery winners who go broke in no time. Think of the professional athletes and show business people who finish their careers with nothing left. They spent all they made on silly stuff that is meaningless. Like I've said before, most people must make their fortunes 3 times. They loose the first first two and hang on to the third.

 

[WJK]

I'm not sure if it's something I deliberately do on purpose. It is just a natural drive at times. I suppose it's more a belief as well I rather focus on the growth mindset then sit around and invest my time in something that doesn't add value to my future.

I don't believe everyone has the work ethic like you're talking about, the inner drive, or inner motivation to last that long. If your asking the question, you might not see the point and it's not necessarily about the money.

You can be a farmer work from 4 A.M. until 11 P.M. and not become a Millionaire. Some people just love working and moving around where others may not.

I had a grandfather that worked in his 80's, and didn't have too. I also took care of elders who didn't want to work and sit in the chair all day and watch t.v.

Everyone's work ethic may be different.

I believe in hard work coupled with working smart. Productive hours make the difference.