I’m a big fan of Mike Rowe.
The guy from Dirty Jobs.
That show isn’t on anymore, but Mike has a new podcast that is pretty entertaining and enlightening. I think he said he based it on the old Rest Of The Story series from Paul Harvey.
I have fond memories of listening to that old show with my grandpa every day during lunchtime when I was visiting.
Anyway, I think I heard this from Mike somewhere along the line. Or it could have been from Gary Vaynerchuk. I just can’t remember.
The idea is that you can work both hard and smart. They’re not mutually exclusive.
Lazy people often say it’s more important to work smarter than harder. But that’s just an excuse.
I’d like to take things a step further…
You have to work hard in order to work smart.
Hard Work Is Required
This gets back to the idea that quantity is required to create quality.
That’s another excuse we make. We fail to start doing something or to complete something and we say that we’re just working on quality versus quantity.
I hear it all the time in the blogging world.
Someone has a blog. Maybe personal. Maybe for a business.
Either way, they might have five ideas to start. Then it gets tough. Eventually the blog dies. The person often says they’re just working on quality posts. They don’t want to post junk.
Well you know what?
You need to put in the quantity to get to the quality.
It’s the same with hard work and smart work. You can’t become smart at something until you put in the hard work.
The Process
Kids might understand this better than adults.
Watch a kid learn how to walk.
They have no idea. They’re not smart at walking. They’ve never done it before.
Are they going to read a book to learn?
Nope.
The only way to learn is to watch others walk. Then mimic. Fall down. Fail. Experience a little success. Fall again. Fail. Learn.
Then after all that hard work they become smart. They learn to walk and they get better and better.
Soon they’re running. Now they know that they can get somewhere faster by running and turning corners and not falling down.
Smart.
Final Thought
So the next time you catch yourself using the excuse that you’re not working hard because you’re working smart take a second to really think about that.
While you’re not working someone else out there is working. They’re doing the dirty things. They’re doing the repetitive things. They’re not only getting something done, but they’re getting smarter.
They’re working hard and it’s leading to working smart. They may not even realize they’re working smart. They don’t care because they know that hard work is what leads to their success.
Maybe it’s blogging or using social media or creating videos or creating podcasts. Just get it done. Don’t worry so much about the quality. Don’t worry as much about better equipment and research and all that.
It will come with the hard work. Repetition. Going through the learning process just like a kid putting in the hard work to learn how to walk.