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Old 10-25-2016, 07:53 PM
 
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Hard work is certainly the most important thing to me in life. I'm in the trades and everyone knows people in the trades bust their arses every day for people like you to have shelter and to chose to be lazy. Not everyone can work in the trades but they can work hard in other jobs. I will agree with one thing you said that you don't have to work hard to be successful. Most millionaires or rich people do not work hard. For these people it's a matter of slick talking and who you know not what you know. If you are cool and liked by many you can become successful without working hard at all. The difference between someone who works hard to someone who doesn't and is rich is...the hard worker is respected the rich person is not. People respect hard work the only people who respect rich people is other rich people.
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Old 10-25-2016, 08:14 PM
 
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Originally Posted by eddie1278 View Post
I will agree with one thing you said that you don't have to work hard to be successful. Most millionaires or rich people do not work hard. For these people it's a matter of slick talking and who you know not what you know.
Or you can work hard and still not be successful in my case. Yes many rich people do not work hard but I would say most is a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe the average rich people don't but many musicians for example I'm sure do work hard. I know of a few that definitely do. It is not an easy job to constantly worry about your image, promoting records going out on tour etc. That industry is very fickle so they can have a ton of money one day but the next be bankrupt if they don't sign onto the right projects.
Even some actors work hard too I'm sure. Most of them I'm sure didn't start out as rich. Jim Carrey for example was homeless (I believe he lived out of his car) before he started and there are plenty of other names with him that had financial woes.
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Old 10-26-2016, 05:29 AM
 
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Originally Posted by Burke_D View Post
This is not to say that people should do nothing but to infer that work is ALWAYS rewarded with opportunity is simply ridiculous. Some people simply will never get the lucky breaks that they need to move ahead.
Agreed. Of course everyone has their own experiences in life, and when it comes to the whole "hard work vs. luck" debate, most people who have been given lucky breaks (good luck) will say it takes hard work to make MORE good luck, and most people who have not been given lucky breaks will say hard work does not make good luck.

Both groups of people are correct. However...

In my opinion, luck will always trump hard work. Always. When I speak of luck, I speak of good luck, bad luck and no luck. Good luck is usually random, bad luck is also usually random. If you have no luck, then you are stagnant, all the hard work in the world will not make you successful, all your hard work will not magically make good luck appear.

I have been animating for close to 10 years. I have animated over 30 shorts and one feature length animated film. Me and my sister have our own web site (which we coded) called areyouguystwins Animation studio, where we showcase our animations. We have entered various animation competitions and festivals where our animations were either not accepted or ignored. I have done the hard work, writing and animating, writing 3 screenplays, designing our own web site, having a Youtube channel and Vimeo channel, sending animation links to various "people in the biz" and to be promptly rejected or ignored.

Now what? Ten years of animating and I still can't get my foot in the door. We haven't made a dime off our animations. What work do I need to do in order to get that good luck that is supposed to be the reward of hard work? I don't know what to do to get myself out of my "no luck" phase. Just an example of how no luck has been trumping my hard work with regard to moving along my animation dream (having our own animation series on TV).

BTW, I was born into a lower class family. No connections. I paid for my own college degrees (3 of them) and I have worked over 24 jobs in 32 years. I have worked hard and have never made over $31,000 a year. I am not a felon, I am not on drugs, I am not an alcoholic, I do not have kids, I am not and have never been on welfare. Currently, I am unemployed with no health insurance. I have applied to 147 jobs in the past 6 months, went on 22 interviews. I received one lowball job offer for a part-time job. I am still unemployed. I believe I am intelligent, funny, and a great problem solver. I believe I would be an asset for any company.

With all that being said...no company wants me. My animations are going no where, and I have less than one year's left of savings to live off of until I mark my spot under the bridge.

I need some good luck. I need someone to reach out to me with an opportunity, but unfortunately, the universe has other plans. My hard work is doing diddly squat for me at the moment.
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Old 10-26-2016, 06:34 AM
 
28,896 posts, read 54,045,943 times
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Originally Posted by Nickchick View Post
You wouldn't be saying that if you read my previous post. Where's my reward?

Unless you mean appropriate effort all your life so if you screwed up in the past you didn't put enough effort?




All well and fine if you're not a socially awkward person.
Lots of people claim to work hard. Significantly fewer do.

A few weeks ago, I was at the library. There were three people ahead of me in the checkout line. The librarian, a nebbishy kind of guy started looking at the line and began to panic. He actually freaked and shouted back to another employee, "I need help out here!" Mind you, my fellow patrons and I weren't all that concerned. It was a lazy Sunday. But this guy practically had a meltdown because he had to check out three patrons, one after another. I bet that guy went home and complained about what a hard day he had. But most days I'm there, he's spending his days on Facebook and chit-chatting with his fellow librarians.

I once hired a receptionist who worked at the Social Security Administration for thirty years and then retired. She had an undemanding job. Answer phones, make the occasional copies, and help my bookkeeper by entering accounts payable and the whatnot. She'd have long stretches where she would do nothing but make small talk with whoever walked in the door and God forbid if you asked her to stay ten minutes late to help with a project. Yet, you'd think we drove Martha like a freaking quarry slave. When she quit six months later, nobody even missed her. She did that little work.

Then there's the question of how one directs one's energies. Are you working for a bad employer? Are you working in a dead-end job? Are you not standing up for yourself in the office? All these things are part and parcel of how well you do on the job, and in life. Working hard isn't just a matter of how hard you pull the oars. It's mustering the courage to analyze your situation in life, get away from a dead end job, and develop marketable skills.

It's also a matter of taking an objective look at the skills you have and making sure they are as good as you think they are. I know a lot of people who think they're good at their job and are not. They reach a certain level of proficiency and then stop growing. Yet, to hear them talk, they're freaking underappreciated geniuses, when in truth they are one-trick ponies, barely competent and kind of lazy.

I mean, if you just walk in the door at 8:00, take your one-hour lunch break, and are in the sprinters' blocks at 4:59 to go home, then that's part of the problem. If you do not go to networking functions and actually talk to people, if you don't take classes to learn new technology or hone your skills, if you don't seek out new responsibilities in your job, and if you don't make your voice heard, then you truly are making your luck.

At this very moment, I'm banging this post out on a message board when the rest of the world is starting its day at the office. Yet I was also up at five a.m. finishing up a proposal, one that I stayed up writing until midnight. And tonight, I'll work until 9 preparing for a conference next week. I'll work through the weekend on it as well. And on the plane out to the coast. Because I love what I do, and I'm never content with sitting at home and watching television. My being invited to speak at this conference wasn't luck. The world didn't randomly reach out and ask me to lead a seminar. It recognized what I had done in life.

My second job out of college was a freaking nightmare. I was sold a bill of goods when they hired me, and wound up working 70-80 hour weeks all the time. Plus the president of the company was a nitwit who couldn't sell his way out of a paper bag. So I invested time in making contacts and working them. Six months later, I was working somewhere else, much better. But when that place started having issues, chiefly due to the death of the president and the accession of a fool to the leadership slot, I once again began digging my escape tunnel. This time, I resolved to work for myself. Best decision I have ever made. That's what happens when you choose to not be a victim of events.

As far as the socially awkward thing? I think we all have our personality tics. It is the rare person who coasts through life self-assured at all times. A very small number of people strut into a room filled with new people and form an instant bond with whomever is there. I certainly am not one of those people. But being able to meet people, establish some kind of working relationship and create a sense of trust is indeed a skill, just the same as welding, Excel, giving a public speech, or anything else.

Nowadays, I'm asked to give speeches a great deal. I lecture at the local university, business groups, and the whatnot. Nobody would know that, in my childhood and teenage years, I was a stutterer. Not a mild one, but someone who had a real problem. So what did I do? I took a public speaking class. Saw a speech therapist. And I worked my butt off at it.

The other thing? People who talk about how much bad luck they have in life are, in a way, self-centered. For they seem to think they are the only ones who have misfortune. I've never met any successful person who didn't deal with setbacks, many of them body blows, to their career and personal life. Job losses, business failures, losses of major clients, you name it. The difference? They didn't crumple up into a fetal position and blame the world for their lack of progress. They got back up, dusted themselves off, and tried again. I mean, Nietzsche's phrase, "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger" gets repeated so often, it has become cliché. But that doesn't make it untrue.

I mean, hell, I managed to survive the sudden death of my business partner. I once lost an account that was 70% of my business. I had another account that declared bankruptcy and left me holding the bag for $50,000 in vendor obligations. Do you think I blamed bad luck and folded my tent? Hell no. It wasn't fun. At times, it was misery. But I -- get this -- rolled up my sleeves, worked my ass off and got through it.

So, yeah. I think this entire "success is mostly a matter of luck" is essentially the talk of victims, whinging of how the world didn't dance around them in life, banging tambourines. But life doesn't hand out participation trophies. Don't be that person expecting one. Get up and persevere. Because hard work and tenacity are the only things in life that are the guarantors of success.

Last edited by cpg35223; 10-26-2016 at 07:05 AM..
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Old 10-26-2016, 09:21 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
Lots of people claim to work hard. Significantly fewer do.
Lots of people claim their hard work resulted in their success, and good luck had very little to do with it. Whereas if you dig really deep, you find good luck was a major factor in their success.

Lots of people work hard but never obtain success. If you dig really deep, you find bad luck or no luck (good) was a major factor in why they never succeeded.

Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
So, yeah. I think this entire "success is mostly a matter of luck" is essentially the talk of victims, whinging of how the world didn't dance around them in life, banging tambourines. But life doesn't hand out participation trophies. Don't be that person expecting one. Get up and persevere. Because hard work and tenacity are the only things in life that are the guarantors of success.
I used to have the same attitude you have. Then I saw and experienced the no luck and bad luck in my life. There are some things in life that are totally out of one's control. Good and bad. When good things happen, it always seem to be because of hard work. When bad things happen, it is because someone didn't work hard enough or are whiners. That's crap.

My father worked hard as a truck driver for 35 years. He worked hard to support his family, food, keep a roof over our heads. At age 40 he was diagnosed with Lymphomia. Good luck prevailed and he found a decent doctor who helped him into remission for 15 years. At the age of 55 his cancer returned and he died less than a year later.

Now, did my father not work hard enough to stop the cancer from coming back? If he had worked hard enough (found a better doctor - not that he could afford one) would he have been guaranteed a successful outcome and go back into remission? Remember "...hard work and tenacity are the only things in life that are the guarantors of success."

A year later my mother had a massive stroke at the age of 56 and has been permanently disabled these past 25 years with aphasia and paralysis on her right side. Did bad luck or her bad choices cause her stroke? She wasn't that old, she wasn't overweight and she didn't smoke. Come to find out, our family has a genetic brain malformation (AVM) that caused her bleeding stroke. My brother also has an AVM which they say can cause a stroke at anytime, he is only 51 years old. He works hard. In fact, he still drives to work everyday, even though the doctor said he shouldn't because of his AVM. He is working hard, but will his hard work prevent a stroke in the near future? Probably not.

My older sister, was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 45. Now, one can say she may have caused her cancer, as she worked as a dental hygientist for over 25 years. Perhaps the tens of thousands of xrays she took contributed to her breast cancer. She went through hell for 8 years trying to fight the cancer (which is useless, better to live with cancer than to try to eradicate it). Last month she died at the age of 53. She worked hard all her life. She paid for her own college, worked full-time continually for over 25 years while raising three children. But when it came to cancer, all bets were off. Her hard work in fighting, her tenacity did not guarantee success against cancer. She was angry and did not want to die at the age of 53. But she died anyway.

Bad luck and good luck are random. You can't "make" luck. Bad luck and good luck will always trump any hard work in life. Always. Nothing wrong with admitting as such. It's life. Again, just my opinion, based on my experiences these past 50 years on this planet.
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Old 10-26-2016, 06:14 PM
 
Location: East Coast of the United States
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Originally Posted by peebola View Post
Ten years of animating and I still can't get my foot in the door. We haven't made a dime off our animations. What work do I need to do in order to get that good luck that is supposed to be the reward of hard work?
The unfortunate truth is that achieving financial success in any artistic endeavor is a long shot. Whether you're talking about acting, making music, dancing, painting, photography, filming, animating, etc., the chance of making it big is very slim no matter how hard you try. EVERYBODY wants to hit the jackpot in artistic fields.

So in this case you're right. It is about luck.
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Old 10-26-2016, 08:16 PM
 
Location: Boston
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I see very few people working hard. The people who do are usually successful. People who give up or complain about their circumstance are boring.
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Old 10-27-2016, 06:08 AM
 
179 posts, read 155,233 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer View Post
The unfortunate truth is that achieving financial success in any artistic endeavor is a long shot. Whether you're talking about acting, making music, dancing, painting, photography, filming, animating, etc., the chance of making it big is very slim no matter how hard you try. EVERYBODY wants to hit the jackpot in artistic fields.
So in this case you're right. It is about luck.
Everybody wants to hit the jackpot in all fields, and in all cases it is about luck. Sure, you can work hard in your chosen "field." But you'll just get by and maybe consider yourself successful because you're not under a bridge. However, if you want real success (which in American translates only to lots and lots of money), then luck is the ONLY thing that matters. And in the artistic/entertainment field this applies even more so. You can be totally successful in such a field with absolutely NO talent and NO hard work. Seems to be the norm, and not the exception - just look around you.
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Old 10-27-2016, 12:52 PM
 
4,299 posts, read 2,801,433 times
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Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post

As far as the socially awkward thing? I think we all have our personality tics. It is the rare person who coasts through life self-assured at all times. A very small number of people strut into a room filled with new people and form an instant bond with whomever is there. I certainly am not one of those people. But being able to meet people, establish some kind of working relationship and create a sense of trust is indeed a skill, just the same as welding, Excel, giving a public speech, or anything else.

Nowadays, I'm asked to give speeches a great deal. I lecture at the local university, business groups, and the whatnot. Nobody would know that, in my childhood and teenage years, I was a stutterer. Not a mild one, but someone who had a real problem. So what did I do? I took a public speaking class. Saw a speech therapist. And I worked my butt off at it.

The other thing? People who talk about how much bad luck they have in life are, in a way, self-centered. For they seem to think they are the only ones who have misfortune. I've never met any successful person who didn't deal with setbacks, many of them body blows, to their career and personal life. Job losses, business failures, losses of major clients, you name it. The difference? They didn't crumple up into a fetal position and blame the world for their lack of progress. They got back up, dusted themselves off, and tried again. I mean, Nietzsche's phrase, "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger" gets repeated so often, it has become cliché. But that doesn't make it untrue.


So, yeah. I think this entire "success is mostly a matter of luck" is essentially the talk of victims, whinging of how the world didn't dance around them in life, banging tambourines. But life doesn't hand out participation trophies. Don't be that person expecting one. Get up and persevere. Because hard work and tenacity are the only things in life that are the guarantors of success.

It's not the average tic. Sometimes my subconscious even has me practice socializing with neighbors but the more it has me practice the more it becomes apparent that I am the black sheep. I'm not like other people so as a result even in my school years I only had a few friends and I lost touch with pretty much all of them. I was the kid that many people said hi to but that was all. It didn't go further than that.

I had a lisp in school and it has mostly gone away but I still have speech issues. As far as speech class, when I was young I loved to read and many times I read aloud (in school too) but I always have these moments. They become even more apparent when I'm nervous but they're always there. I love to sing for example..I always have and because I'm bad rhythmically I sing at home alone A LOT and I mean a lot but I still have plenty of "glitches" in the words. It will be a song I've sung a thousand times so I know the words and I know how to pronounce them but my mouth just doesn't want to say them right. Sure I used to be a lot worse but it is likely that this is as good as it's going to get. I can't change this about myself because it's part of my disability. Maybe this wouldn't be as bad alone but more than that, I have an issue with "searching for words" verbally on top of that and speech class would never fix that. Sometimes it will happen with someone I know so I'm not nervous.


Yes I know a lot of people have had failures but that doesn't change the fact that my setbacks are not average. If I have thanatophobia and have had suicidal thoughts in my life it's clear that it can be too much. When I first told the guy I am dating what had happened to me in the past he was legitimately shocked. I don't like to get personal so I keep the details vague but far too many people have taken advantage of me..at best I get ignored when I would need the attention.

I think you didn't read my post because I explained my situation. I may have still tried for a job but I can't help feeling burnt out. I'm tired of these employers who won't give me a chance because I've been unemployed for so long. While in a sense it may have been my fault I'm just a person and not to mention a person who didn't even know she had a disability until years later. I have been looking for the right opportunity since I got out of high school. I took a year or two off but then I went right to looking at colleges so I haven't been just sitting around doing nothing all this time. All I want is a start in a job I wouldn't mind. I don't care at all about the salary or the employer. I just want to get paid something. It shouldn't be this hard to get an entry level job but somehow it is. I even tried both movie theaters. They didn't even want me. I tried Bed Bath and Beyond which I would be cool with working there. I've tried the pet store so many damn times that it's pathetic.


Quote:
Originally Posted by peebola View Post
I used to have the same attitude you have. Then I saw and experienced the no luck and bad luck in my life. There are some things in life that are totally out of one's control. Good and bad. When good things happen, it always seem to be because of hard work. When bad things happen, it is because someone didn't work hard enough or are whiners. That's crap.
Yeah the more I live life, the more I see when I strive so much for a job, I can't control whether they hire me or not. No amount of how much I try to appear employable/likeable it's THEIR decision to hire me or not. I think a lot of people think I haven't worked hard because I've never had a formal job but I've been making penny change online for years and I don't do them like other people. I would often do many of them at a time. I would just appreciate minimum wage for the amount of striving I've done to find a job and to do those sites.
Since a lot of people have said I'm too pessimistic I've even tried the laws of attraction and it doesn't seem to be doing anything for me.


Quote:
Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer View Post
The unfortunate truth is that achieving financial success in any artistic endeavor is a long shot. Whether you're talking about acting, making music, dancing, painting, photography, filming, animating, etc., the chance of making it big is very slim no matter how hard you try. EVERYBODY wants to hit the jackpot in artistic fields.

So in this case you're right. It is about luck.
Maybe but as I stated above, I'm not asking to make it big right now. I just want to get started making some money. That shouldn't be a lot to ask.



Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post

Working hard isn't just a matter of how hard you pull the oars. It's mustering the courage to analyze your situation in life, get away from a dead end job, and develop marketable skills.
Well this only reiterates my point more. I am a constant analyzer and the more I analyze things the more I get frustrated. It'd be difficult to find somebody who thinks as much as I do (which isn't always a good thing). I've tried to think of all ways to market what I have. I've even looked it up...to no avail. I've asked people too. I'll tell them that I need to find an angle but they have no answer for me. I know I have one. I just don't know how to market it maybe partially due to my slight inarticulation. I have a hard time explaining myself in an appealing way.
Right now I'm reading a book that I got from Amazon that seemed to be suited for my type of brain so I'm hoping that this is my answer to finding my angle but 20 some chapters later it's mostly fluff. Also I think now that I've been reading it, I'm starting to overthink for the signs of what the author is talking about.

Last edited by Nickchick; 10-27-2016 at 01:17 PM..
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Old 10-27-2016, 04:04 PM
 
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Yes, luck is involved. But the job was offered to me, a person with no experience for the job, because I had spent the 10 previous years working hard, gaining a reputation for good work. And when opportunity knocked I jumped at the chance. I did everything I could to make the absolute best of that piece of luck.

I met my future wife on the subway. I chatted her up and convinced her to give me her phone number. Neither one of us normally took that train. A piece of luck, but I jumped at the chance. We've been married 43 years to date.

I bought my first house because the owner's children had measles and were quarantined for 6 weeks and I got the opportunity to view the house the day after the quarantine lifted. There was already a bid on the house at full asking price and I told the realtor to offer the owner $1500 above asking, and was accepted. A piece of luck, but I jumped at it.

Luck comes very rarely, and the door opens for a very short time. But if you know what you want and jump through the door, you can take advantage of that luck.

But you have to work hard to take advantage of the luck. Otherwise that great job will cause you to get fired. That great romance will end in divorce. And that great house will crumble around you from neglect.

Quote:
Originally Posted by IamDot View Post
Stroke of luck happened with the above bolded. Imagine if the pro from IBM showed up for the job. You would have been out, no questions asked, and no one would care how hard you worked. Luck has to be involved for anything good to happen.

You can never gain luck by hard work, because the definition of luck is "good fortune; advantage or success, considered as the result of chance." Now people always say "if you work hard enough luck happens." Nope. Luck is happenstance and can occur with the laziest of people. Then people will say "if you are there at the right time because of your hard work... luck happens more often." Nope. Luck is happenstance and can occur once in someone's life through no work or effort on that person's part. If luck resulted from hard work, then why aren't there millions of lottery winners working in the rice fields of China. Those people work hard every day, luck should be shining its light on them. Nope. Luck is completely distinct from hard work.
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