Long Work vs Hard Work
Sunday Scoop #41 - Stumbled across Seth Godin's article on 'Long Work vs Hard Work'. Here are my thoughts on it.
Hey friends,
Since Ivy Day results and Trials Examinations, I’ve been thinking a lot about how work ethic relates to success.
My thoughts on it have developed quite a bit over that time period and I plan to share them with you after my A2 examinations.
However, I came across Seth Godin’s article last week and it has helped me organize my thoughts on it. You can find the original article here.
Long work is what the lawyer who bills 14 hours a day filling in forms does.
Hard work is what the insightful litigator does when she synthesizes four disparate ideas and comes up with an argument that wins the case–in less than five minutes.
Long work has a storied history. Farmers, hunters, factory workers… Always there was long work required to succeed. For generations, there was a huge benefit that came to those with the stamina and fortitude to do long work.
Hard work is frightening. We shy away from hard work because inherent in hard work is risk. Hard work is hard because you might fail. You can’t fail at long work, you merely show up. You fail at hard work when you don’t make an emotional connection, or when you don’t solve the problem or when you hesitate.
I think it’s worth noting that long work often sets the stage for hard work. If you show up enough and practice enough and learn enough, it’s more likely you will find yourself in a position to do hard work.
It seems, though that no matter how much long work you do, you won’t produce the benefits of hard work unless you are willing to leap.
When it comes to entrepreneurship and relationships, I’ve always been a big believer that we should do things that don’t scale. Do more, do it better.
However, in things like academics and sports (aspects you want to see personal progress), its important to not fall into the fallacy that we are being ‘productive’ and ‘hard working’, simply because we are putting in the hours.
Find the things that truly move the needle. More often than not, we know exactly what these things are. But we consciously avoid it, because as Seth says, “Hard work is frightening“.
That is all for this week. Probably going to launch something cool tomorrow so keep your eyes peeled!
Stay productive, my friends, and let’s get into that hard work.
Jia Shing.