To say that ‘hard work’ alone will never make you rich?

[ThisWaryOtter]

If hard work was all it took, wouldn’t every low-paid worker be wealthy? Isn’t success more about luck, connections, and privilege?

My brother is rich. My dad always says "but he works hard" ... I work hard, my dh works hard, yes my brother works hard - but his wealth is not because of the hours he puts in, or him being cleverer or more talented than anyone else in our family. It's because he got a lucky break at the right time, is clearly skilled in the area he went in to and has done well for himself. It annoys me soooo much when my dad says it's because he works hard.. as though only people on very large size figure salaries work hard. Pft.

@ThisWaryOtter , my husband and I left school at 16. We both worked very hard and saved even harder. We started our own business when I was 26. Successful people work extremely hard, harder than the norm. They take responsibility and many risks along with plenty of sacrifices.
My husband and I retired 3 years ago, I am now 61. We both came from very modest backgrounds with no privilege whatsoever and are now worth well over 5,000,000.00.
P.S.
Successful people tell themselves they can and treat each setback as a challenge. I’m sorry I know that’s not what you wanted to hear but there are heaps of other responders happy to share your defeatism, I thought you should hear the truth.

Hard work has always been overused to explain people being in good positions. I think part of it comes from parents - now and historically - who tell their kids that working hard at school and university guarantees you a nice life and a good job. Which rarely happens.

@SlaveToAGoldenRetriever , what an inspiring story; well done to him. 👏👏👏

Connections are massively overplayed, especially with regards to women as women don’t tend to help other women in business in my experience although that is a generalisation. Luck and hard work .. I worked v hard but I was extremely lucky with the industry I landed in which was in its infancy so when it took off so did I. I had a decent ish education but it had no bearing on my career at all. Not sure that’s possible anymore. Choices too .. making the right ones but again that again can come down to luck.

There is also being rich in money, and being rich in satisfaction in helping others. Kudos to all on the thread who have done well in their bank balances, and kudos to all who have spent their time happily in service to others

The “easiest” way to increase your lifetime wealth is by investing. IE in stocks or property. Obviously for the average Joe it’s slow going for the first years but then accumulation really starts kicking in. A big difference of course is that rich kids have their parents invest kn theur behalf while the typical state school kid isn’t even taught about it at school.

To answer this, you can absolutely find ways to work smarter in your line of works but it all boils down to goals, decisions, risk and somewhat going with gut and having a little luck.

For someone doing on the ground work like this, there are opportunities to move up, to train others so that there is always a generation that can pick up the work and putting yourself in more senior positions within this space- whilst making validated decisions which earns you more money. Even if it takes years.

A cousin of mine started as a mental health nurse - on the ground, crazy shifts with 3 children and fleeing domestic abuse! She completely started her life again in another city. Worked hard! Then moved up to senior position and started freelancing for other practices which gave her more income. Then as the kids grew up she started investing in businesses and continued moving up bands whilst growing the business directly related to her work. Her business was solving a direct issue she had seen whilst “on the ground”.

Now she’s not rich, but very comfortable and able to take care of her children, with her own home m, car etc.

People who have money or are “rich” are quite intentional - they make what I call “money” decisions and can often see into the future (not psychic - but opportunities that the average person may miss) and they work towards a future version of themselves and at the same time are an actual service to people, whilst branching out what the offer - and this comes in many shapes and forms.

I think work ethic is so much more important than hard work - the word work ethic describes an attitude and way of working. But every decision made has to be intentional.

If someone has the required skills/business smarts for that, absolutely. But without those, it's pretty hard to progress up the ladder. Some are always going to be stuck at the bottom through no fault of their own regardless how hard they work.

Working hard at creating opportunities for yourself, working hard at connecting with the right people and proving your worth (to them).

You have to work hard , education is free , this is the starting point . If you want to make money choose a well paying career and focus hard in it taking all the opportunities offered . Put yourself out to move locations for promotions etc .
Earning well is not about luck it's about being committed to your career rather than just choosing a low paid job because you have no education. / ambition for anything else .

Hard work yes, but determination and a refusal to give up are also important. So many people either get complacent, or just lose interest and give up.

Your last sentence is unfair. Your statements don't take into account that people's intelligence levels vary. Some people are stuck in low paid, menial jobs because (not meaning this in a nasty way) they lack the basic intelligence to move up any sort of career ladder. Nothing to do with ambition, and all the education in the world won't propel someone up through the ranks if they don't have what it takes to start with. The playing field will never be level, for this exact reason.

We're also forgetting PLENTY of people make a minimum wage and see it as a 'career' because they're doing something they enjoy/feel important. Thank god some people in care homes/some healthcare/social work/TAs don't have the 'ambition' to move up and keep our country moving. I don't think it's purely an intelligence/ambition thing.

But your DH’s success wasn’t just about “hard work” but working hard in a way that enable him to generate a very good income. He presumably used his nous and ability to work smartly, and willingness to take some risks, rather than simply slog his guts out day in day out.

I work in Finance. I could work ferociously hard 20 hours a day for a week, manually doing calculations long-hand with a pencil and paper for my budget report, or I could use a spreadsheet and get the same job done in 20 minutes, and without any of the inevitable errors that occur from manual calculations….. and then sit on my arse for the rest of the week (I don’t as I have many other things to do!).

To me it's a lot about making good decisions and critical thinking. My friends are all a similar age and similarly (degree) educated. We've got a mix of backgrounds - some wealthy and some less so but there's no correlation between that and success now. My friend who earns the most (around £150k) grew up in a council house with a single mum. Broadly we all earn the same. But geez, some have made some stupid decisions over the years with money which will ultimately will make them less rich. Lots of people I know live in big houses with huge mortgages and fancy cars but zero pension for example. They won't be rich when they're 65 but might appear rich now. Although a lot of that is bolstered by debt. Rich means different things to different people.

Yes you need to work hard but that is not enough on its own.

Working hard at (for example) waitressing or care work or being a TA will not give you the skills to progress to shift manager or care home manager or teacher.

You might have those skills and qualifications from elsewhere in your life but you won't get them on the job.

Anyone under early 40s has a completely different landscape in terms of wage stagnation, changes to mortgage lending, house prices etc. so it's pointless someone older saying "I did this'", particularly if it simply making money out of property. And then within that a 25 yr old has it even harder than the 40 yr old did when they were the same age.

It's not just hard work, it's the right hard work.

I'm not rich, but I'm doing really well. I've got there by putting myself in the way of luck, and yes, working really hard, after getting the right education - which I also worked really hard to get, since my parents are also not wealthy and so could only offer a small amount of (much appreciated) support.

Basically, every big decision in my life was carefully considered - from my A-levels, to not getting a pet until I'd 'made it' so I could move around as much as I needed to to get the the next good job.

I was willing to do things that other people weren't - move country at the drop of a hat, work weird hours (currently in a meeting, I started work at 6am - as I have done for the last 3 years to overlap with another country and so that I can still look after my kids since I'm also a single mum). And I was willing to take risks - some paid off, some didn't.

If I'd done what my siblings had done - taken degrees they were interested in (not that I'm not interested in my degree! But that wasn't the primary driver), taken jobs close to where they liked to live, had children an pets and hobbies that they didn't want to compromise with or delay, then I'd be like them. Middling to OK - which is fine, if that's the life you want. If you want to be rich (and you're not born with money) then it's going to take sacrifice.

Read any thread where people earn 100k + (and tbf half of MN seem to) and everyone will insist it's because they had drive, took opportunities and worked really hard. That is probably true ...but I'd guess a lot (not all) involved other factors like natural ability/talent, supportive family, good education, good physical and mental health, being exposed to opportunities and an element of luck. I think people feel offended if you point out that because they think you're insinuating they didnt work hard when both can be true, they worked really hard and had some advantage/privilege. Even race and gender (of which you do not influence) can be an advantage - If you look at the demographic of a lot of rich successful people I'd imagine there is a majority of white men. Do women and people of colour not work as hard as them?

DH bought his first property when he was 21 (in the 1980s) He gets really upset if I suggest there was an element of luck because property prices were comparably lower, he insists it's because he worked really hard. I've known him nearly 30 years and he absolutely does have a really hard work ethic, but it's also true a 21 year old today in the same job with the same work ethic would be unlikely to to buy a similar property.

I worked for a company for 15 years.
Started in the warehouse at 21.
Long hours, overtime, putting myself out to be useful.

I was told hard work leads to success.

By my 15th year I'd gone from being on the warehouse floor, to supervisor, to office based admin assistant.

In my 15th year, an 17 year old started.
They let him work a fortnight in every department. In every department, he was lazy, didn't take anything on board, had bad attitude etc.

After about 10 weeks or so, he was given the choice of which department he wanted to work in.
They'd never done that for anyone before.

It just so happens this kid is the neighbour of the boss, his family all go football together, they holiday together. The big boss and this kids dad play golf together.

Fuck hardwork. It'll never win against nepotism and luck.

I know from working in schools that many people underestimate how hard a lot of successful people work. Too many of my students think success comes easily to other people and use that as an excuse not to do much.

I think running is good for teaching this. If you run 5/6 times a week, will that mean you will win lots of races and become an Olympic runner? No. Will it mean that you will be fitter and faster than most people? Yes.

Earning well is not about luck it's about being committed to your career rather than just choosing a low paid job because you have no education. / ambition for anything else .

Yes because there are that many 6 figure jobs available? nurses, paramedics, teachers, no education and ambition?

It’s not as simple as this. Obviously connections and networks are important and they obviously confer a huge advantage but they are not the only important factor.

A connection will open a door but if you lack the intelligence and drive to use that connection you will run aground.

True success is usually a combination of several stars aligning.

You need to define "hard work". Lower wage workers tend to physically work harder, but usually to progress it's not about the physical work, but strategy. Networking, keeping abreast of industry changes, conferences, training and courses, frequent job changes. It's taking risks and being in difficult positions not getting comfortable. Not 14 hour shifts of monotonous work. When people say they've worked hard to get to where they've been, that's what it means to me.

My dad has physically worked harder than me in his much lower paid job, but I've put myself in far more challenging and uncomfortable positions he never would; he would never publicly speak, or commute 100 miles a day for the next leg up, or make a decision on a multi million pound contract, or start studying again. But these are some of the core reasons I managed to become a high earner.