"If you're working overtime very often on your own business, it's either because you're incompetent, or lazy, or greedy, or failing (see 'incompetent')."
Of all of the successful people I've met (measured in cash, influence, etc), I can't think of ANY who weren't pretty seriously married to their work. I guess many of those people fall into the "greedy" camp and are doing it for the money. But I think most of them do it because they love (or are just addicted to) the game they are playing.
Whoever you're competing with, you've probably got competitors smarter than you and willing to put in long hours. If you're playing to win (many people do, for a lot of reasons), how do you propose to beat them?
To anticipate a common argument: Yes, working hard can lead to stress/bad decisions/burnout. But empirically, it seems to correlate pretty strongly with success.
Of all of the successful people I've met (measured in cash, influence, etc), I can't think of ANY who weren't pretty seriously married to their work. I guess many of those people fall into the "greedy" camp and are doing it for the money. But I think most of them do it because they love (or are just addicted to) the game they are playing.
Whoever you're competing with, you've probably got competitors smarter than you and willing to put in long hours. If you're playing to win (many people do, for a lot of reasons), how do you propose to beat them?
To anticipate a common argument: Yes, working hard can lead to stress/bad decisions/burnout. But empirically, it seems to correlate pretty strongly with success.