What Does Hard Work Mean Anyway?

byTonyRidgeway

1.2K followers

11 years ago

The story that I share with you here is a bit of a personal one today. You see, I am a jack of many trades, and truly a master of none. I am a nurse and an IT technician by education, an internet marketer and online entrepreneur by passion, and a stone mason and concrete layer by a simple upbringing in the backwoods of West Virginia.

Those last two titles are the reason for this post today as it is due to them that I witnessed something that truly surprised me and made me realize personally what hard work truly looks like.

The skills that I have learned through the years working stone and concrete were taught to me by my grandfather who is now 86 years old. To say that this man is a stubborn old codger would be an understatement like no other.

He’s shared stories with me through the years on topics of the depression and looking for scrap for the war effort, to times that he walked 8 miles each way to get a soda at the local general store in his hometown. Some of these are quite intriguing and show a different picture entirely as it’s always been a simple thing to me to simply walk to the corner, insert my money, and watch an ice cold soda now fall from a machine. Those are stories for perhaps another time though as the point of this came very recently.

Just the other day we were preparing an upcoming concrete pour. There were several of us on the job site and I was busy working on one corner setting up grades as some of the other guys were bringing in rock by wheelbarrow to fill in the area where the concrete was to be poured. This requires a lot of work with shovels and raking tools, and truly is pretty grueling work on a good day. This day though, the sun was beating, and the temperatures had already climbed into the high 80s.

With a storm approaching, there was no time to stop, and I as I completed the grade, I turned to go help get rock in, only to see my 86 year old grandfather with shovel in hand, sweating like there’s no tomorrow, throwing rock across the forms to level the grade. To top it off, he had taken the shovel from one of the young laborers who we had hired to bring in the rock!

As I approached, he handed the shovel back to this young man and smiled one of his famous smiles that simply say, “Yes, I probably shouldn’t have done that,” and he wiped the sweat away with his handkerchief.

I simply inquired to him as to why he was doing this rather than simply watching to ensure that things were being done correctly as he has more than 60 years of experience and his wisdom on the subject truly is amazing. His response to me has honestly caused me a lot of thought.

He said “Son, let me tell you. The day you stop working hard is the day that you’ll surely get worked over the hardest. So long as you do a good job and work hard for a man, then he’ll bring you back to work again. If you don’t then you won’t find another man to work hard for.”

The reason that I have spent so much time thinking about his words are that they truly reflect a work ethic that has been forgotten, and are VERY important to all of us as internet entrepreneurs. You see, that “man” that you have to be working hard for in the world of online marketing is yourself. If you don’t work hard for yourself, then you will certainly have difficulty succeeding.

I perhaps read a bit too far into it, but the impact that I received from observing this event has taught me a very important lesson. That lesson is that it simply doesn’t matter how young or old you are, how strong or tired you may be, or how much you have to work with in the start. All that matters at the end of the day is how hard you feel you have worked for yourself. Do you feel as though you’ve done your best or have you simply done enough to get by?

Time and time again we see success posts here at WA from members who have blown the naysayers away and conquered the challenges that were put before them. Guess what, they all started right where many of us now find ourselves. That is with nothing in our arsenal but our computers, the training here at WA, and the prospect of extremely hard work.

Are you ready to let the sweat pour from your brow even though you really don’t have to? After all, you’re the boss of your internet business, you’re the one who will be writing your checks, and you’re the one that will be giving the judgment of what a HARD day’s work truly looks like.

Best of luck to all of you as you begin another hard week of earning your pay.