> Also, if you want to succeed, don't listen to these idiots. Statistically those who work harder succeed more. Period.
I'm mean I generally agree but one thing I really can't stand is people believing that success is entirely hard work.
The reality is most of success is "standing on the shoulder of giants". People are generally successful if they are given a massive starting advantage. That starting advantage could be genetics (which can be argued easily since that is sort of hidden) and wealth (of which there is less denying).
You mention Bill Bates. Bill and both Mark Zuckerburg went to Harvard. Both had(ve) affluent parents. Even Steve had some nice advantages as well. As well in the case of this article most scientist have/had affluent parents.
Of course there are Cinderella exceptions. I don't know stat wise what it is but I'm guessing low.
I just don't want to hear hard work always equals success when most board rooms are filled with the white good old boys network.
I didn't say that. This is why it's hard to have civil discussion online because people take words out of context and use whatever interpretation they have.
If you are one of the people who are in unfortunate situations, you can choose to live two different lives: either believe that you're done for and live a loser life, or try hard to get out of it.
It's your choice, but there's plenty of evidence where people who came from the bottom rose to the top by working hard (and I mean "top" as in someone who's made world-changing achievements)
> I didn't say that. This is why it's hard to have civil discussion online because people take words out of context and use whatever interpretation they have.
How about I just agree and say you are right?
Its pretty hard to have a civil discussion when you top level post and accuse HNers of commenting like lemmings.
> This is at best an irresponsible piece of writing that's clearly targeting discussions like what's happening here. This is the 1000th time I've seen a post on this topic on HN, and every time it's posted here it's like groundhog day, same comments. Well this is what publications like these want, they want more traffic.
It sounds like you took a lot of: words out of context and use whatever interpretation they have to come up with your theory.
And now your sort of playing king of the mountain on your original comment (being contentious with me and others) and not wanting a discussion. I even originally mostly agreed with you (see my original comment).
> It's your choice, but there's plenty of evidence where people who came from the bottom rose to the top by working hard (and I mean "top" as in someone who's made world-changing achievements)
Yeah we have had lots of female presidents.
Yeah sure people can go up a few rungs with hard work (hence why I agreed with you) but extremely rare is the true Cinderalla story. It usually takes generations.... but I suppose even success is nebulous.
Actually one could even argue you don't need hard work to be "successful" ... you just need to be happy (this is even based on your previous comments).
Like I said, if you're scared to even try because it will "never happen", be my guest. There are tons of other people in the same situation who will try, and succeed to become the character in your "cinderella story". "cinderella story" never happens to someone who slacks off.
No one is saying "work hard" => "100% success!". I'm saying success doesn't happen to people who slack off (especially if they're in a bad position to succeed). If you can't tell the difference between the two expressions, learn logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraposition
> Like I said, if you're scared to even try because it will "never happen", be my guest. There are tons of other people in the same situation who will try, and succeed to become the character in your "cinderella story". "cinderella story" never happens to someone who slacks off.
There are many that are not even give remotely an opportunity (think North Korean resident... I'm sure you can come up with some other creativity reasons as well).
The funny thing with the real Cinderella story is Cinderella was helped out by a fairy god mother.
By the way many successful people admit that they got massive help and were generally lucky. Read the plethora of quotes from actual successful people. Even my previous quote of "standing on shoulder.." was apropo because it was from a scientist. Steve Jobs: "The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world.". Delegating is a powerful thing. It allows you to work harder with out actually working harder.
> No one is saying "work hard" => "100% success!". I'm saying success doesn't happen to people who slack off (especially if they're in a bad position to succeed).
From your previous comment:
> In fact, you know what? MOST successful people work very hard. Surprising right? Duh.
They don't necessarily work harder. They take advantage of what opportunities present themselves given their starting point. What I'm saying is more of a component of their success is their starting point and many successful people admit this all the time.
You can apply this to a macro entity level as well such as companies. Companies become massive and don't have to work as hard or innovate because the can just acquire and leverage out other firms. If it was the case hard work even remotely equalled success we would have a lot more successful startups.
The reality is once you have a winning entity that entity can start relaxing and not work has hard. And in some cases they didn't have to right from the beginning. This is called the Winner take all theory [1].
Going back to individuals often for many its not even work (in the colloquial use of the word) because they enjoy what they are doing.
Its really hard to have a logical discussion when you haven't really even defined:
* What success is?
* What is hard work?
Otherwise you are just being captain obvious and saying if all things are equal the entities that try harder will more likely succeed. Everyone knows if you don't try you will not succeed.
Here is my 2 cents on being more successful. You don't need to work harder... you need to be more opportunistic and strategic.
Being opportunistic requires more than just perfunctorily "working hard". It requires stepping back some times and getting a big picture of things which some might call slacking. It often requires delegation or deferring.... some would call that slacking or being lazy.
And thanks for the link and accusation that I don't understand Contraposition. Apparently insulting people is a good way to be successful these days.
I'm mean I generally agree but one thing I really can't stand is people believing that success is entirely hard work.
The reality is most of success is "standing on the shoulder of giants". People are generally successful if they are given a massive starting advantage. That starting advantage could be genetics (which can be argued easily since that is sort of hidden) and wealth (of which there is less denying).
You mention Bill Bates. Bill and both Mark Zuckerburg went to Harvard. Both had(ve) affluent parents. Even Steve had some nice advantages as well. As well in the case of this article most scientist have/had affluent parents.
Of course there are Cinderella exceptions. I don't know stat wise what it is but I'm guessing low.
I just don't want to hear hard work always equals success when most board rooms are filled with the white good old boys network.