Yeah, this is probably a different kind of "hard work" than what the author is talking about. There's some people who work hard for the sake of results (hitting certain numbers, clearing tickets/stories, etc).

There's a different sort of hard work involved in achieving deep mastery over something. Reading, researching, building and testing ideas... it takes hard work to become an expert at something, but I guess you're far more likely to see the former type of hard work than this.