The slogan "work smart, not hard" is dumb because smart work only comes after years of grinding through struggle and failure. Innovation emerges from sustained hardship, not shortcuts. People who push this idea are usually lazy.
Paradox was my favorite word in 2024. 2023. 2024. It's 2026. Yeah, 2024. So, uh, everything was paradox and duality for that year for me. Okay. There's also a book called The 8 Paradoxes of Leadership. I wish I could remember the author off the top of my head. Okay. But I picked up that book because I was thinking about it. I realized this, and bear with me on this one. I think work smart, not hard is dumb. But because I think it's dumb, it's probably smart for me. Okay. So let me unpack it. Please. People who say work smart, not hard are usually fairly lazy, in my opinion. Okay. And usually, you don't work smart until after you beat your head against the wall for a while. Like, we all know work hard, work hard, work hard, and then the pain gets great enough and eventually you innovate. Yes. So work smart, not hard is a great saying on a bumper sticker or a fortune cookie, but in real life, usually, it's massive pain and failure that creates innovation. That's why so many innovations happen during wartime. So it's a metaphor for inside a company. Yeah. But I realized that because I don't like that saying, that means it's actually probably good for me because I'm overly work hard.
