Originally posted by Paddy
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Reply to: If you work hard, are you smart?
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Previously on "If you work hard, are you smart?"
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Originally posted by doodab View PostThat's not to say that lots of hard working people aren't wasting their time. They almost certainly are. But there are a lot of lazy people wasting their potential as well.
How to Be Idle
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Originally posted by lukemg View PostHard work on it’s own will not in any way guarantee success.
That's not to say that lots of hard working people aren't wasting their time. They almost certainly are. But there are a lot of lazy people wasting their potential as well.Last edited by doodab; 10 April 2012, 19:52.
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Originally posted by EternalOptimist View PostI like the idea of bumming around with no work and loads of money. But everytime I am off work, if I have nothing to do I start climbing the walls.
You cant be on holiday ALL the time ? can you ?
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I like the idea of bumming around with no work and loads of money. But everytime I am off work, if I have nothing to do I start climbing the walls.
You cant be on holiday ALL the time ? can you ?
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I think I'm so droned into working that I wouldn't know what to do with myself even if I had £millions in the bank!
I would love to travel and see the world, but right now I have family commitments which mean I couldn't even do that. More time with the kids would also be great (not necessarily with the Mrs though ).
I have been working hard these past 15 years or so, but only really making/saving/investing money for the past 7 or 8 years. I could probably sit back now and let residual income cover my monthly outgoings, but it wouldn't make for an interesting life. You do need money to enjoy parts of life, to travel, to educate your kids well, to take your kids to Alton Towers or Disneyland or wherever, to go out for a meal or buy your mates a drink at the pub.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I feel like I'm working hard now to buy myself time later. Perhaps, there are many inherent flaws with this plan, but I'm too entrenched to pull out now... and in any case my contracting lifespan is almost complete so I hope not to be "working too hard" for too much longer
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Originally posted by petergriffin View PostNo, because the only way to work 16 hours a day is to use cocaine and cocaine costs a lot of money, that's way you need to work 16 hours a day to pay for it.
I don't think its a safe assumption that you can grow a company to a size then give it to someone else to manage while you do other stuff. If you do, then you are trusting your own work and future pay to someone else with different motives. Just look at the mess that Stalman made of microsoft...
My wifes uncle built a business based on industry. He then sold the business a few years later for good money. But the guys that took it on where big and the new manager was less than useless and the clients kept coming back to the uncle complaining what a mess they were making of everything. Her uncle now runs a new business with his old customers doing what he used to do before the italians bought him out...
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A tiny number of people have amassed a huge amount of wealth in business and it gives people the illusion of being attainable by anyone (as does football/singing etc). Alongside these are many thousands who have worked themselves to the bone and ended up with nothing or in huge debt through lack of ability, poor decisions, macro economic reasons etc etc. Hard work on it’s own will not in any way guarantee success.
Best plan I heard recently was a chap who said look, there is the odd one who gets lucky with a great idea but for most people you need to get good at something first and look to branch from there into your own business. Reason is that the things you can do early on are usually low skill/low added value enterprises which need little investment - cleaning, retail, cooking, delivery etc which are unlikely to make you rich (yes I KNOW there will be a handful of exceptions). On Dragons den (yes I know its a game show) they often state scaleability as a key factor which is absolutely true, if it requires your input for every output you are stuffed.
At the top of the tree, they love working because they are in charge and get a huge ego feed from being so and good luck to them. Personally, I have had it too easy (as my dad was fond of telling me – he was right) and that has continued into working life, so it’s hard to generate the hunger to work any harder than I have to. Plan B is investments designed to need little effort and keep me comfy in the future, in short, I am lazy...
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Originally posted by yasockie View PostTo me that doesn't sound like a successful life - if they have worked so much, no wonder they earned quite a bit and working so much, they didn't even have the time to spend it...
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Originally posted by yasockie View PostBasically I've seen quite a few 'success' stories, interviews with people of age 60 and above, who are considered successful, at least financially speaking, and (unless they inherited the wealth) they all generally tend to say "I've worked hard, for 16 hours a day, for 25 years for this".
Secondly most people have really got rich from property inflation, not directly from the hard work they did. But maybe they needed to work long hours to service all the mortgage debt they have.
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The thing is those mega-rich people could clearly slacken off once they get a business going, and sit back as decent money comes in - a few £million. Zuckerburg, Page, Gates, Jobs, Branson, Sugar, etc... they haven't hard to work since they scored big but they all choose to continue.
I like to think if I got something that would bring in £1m a year for little direct work, I'd take that... but if your option is £1m for no work or £3m a year for doing the work, you can always spend more
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The key is to use your political skills to get to a place where you have a 6-figure salary for doing "strategy" and get other people to do the hard work.
HTH
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