Work Hard AND Smart

Have you ever heard of the phrase, work smarter, not harder.

‘Yea, I’ve heard that phrase many times before! What do you think of it?’

I think its cool, but not fully accurate.

One common phrase in the communication skills world is:

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.

And although this seems like a great punchline at first, in reality, it’s not the full picture.

Its what you say AND how you say it.

If you just say something with a nice tone & don’t back it up with substance, people will eventually catch on to you.

That’s why it’s important to speak with substance (the what) and deliver it in a beautiful way (the how).

In the real world, it’s about working hard AND smart.

• You’ll realize by working hard, you learn how to work smart.
• And by working smart, you learn how to correctly work hard.

It’s a loop.

Today, you are going to learn more about this loop & why it’s crucial to leveling up in the real world.

Don’t be ones sided now champ.

Be fluid like water.

Let’s see how.

The Importance of Working Hard

When you are first learning something, you are a very unaware individual.

There are a lot of blind spots.

Sure, you can read books to fill in the gaps for certain blind spots.

Books serve as great potential energy.

But eventually, you are going to have to turn that potential knowledge into kinetic energy.

There’s a beauty of learning to mentor yourself in the beginning stages.

When you go seeking mentors from step 1, you often lack experience.

And lack of experience leads to very GENERAL questions.

Questions that waste a mentor’s time.

Experience comes from collecting data.

And collecting data comes from taking action in the skillet that you desire to improve on.

The more data that you have, the more precise your questions become.

The movements are super sloppy at first.

You keep falling on your ass & wonder if you should be working smarter.

But the unfortunate truth is that you don’t currently have the data to work smarter.

Working smarter isn’t just about book knowledge & the words of a mentor.

Working smarter happens after you build awareness from your own experience.

These experiences will serve as puzzle pieces later on.

For now, keep showing up & showing out, even though your destination seems SUPER fuzzy.

The Importance of Working Smart

After a few weeks/months, your brain is going to thank you.

‘Why is it going to thank me?’

Because you have fed it data.

From the data + introspection, you are going to notice a few tasks which stick out.

Those are the levers.

For example, with YouTube.

When I was first starting my YouTube channel, I was focused on all the wrong shit.

Constantly going to different venues, angling the camera, fixing my mic stand etc.

After 100 videos, I realized all that matters is the message.

Normally communication breaks down to:

• Message (what you are saying) + Medium (where is the message being relayed thru).

Since I was doing YouTube, the medium was taken care of.

The MOST important part was WHAT I was going to say.

That ‘aha’ moment got me to buy a strong mic stand & create a studio.

Now, rather than focusing on all the other nonsense, it was a FULL intention on the message.

The working smart stage is all about spotting the 2-3 tasks which everything is built upon.

And doing your best to harness all your energy & channel it on those tasks.

Working hard AND smart

If you couldn’t pick up on it, the 2 acts mainly come down to:

• Working hard = Going all in + Collecting data
• Working smart = Understanding/simplifying Data + Going all in

The goal is to keep the loop going.

A beautiful synergy of working hard and working smart is the cornerstone of self-improvement.

‘And how much am I capable of improving?’

You can improve as much as you want.

The thing with learning a skill is:

The more that you learn, the more that you realize that you have more to learn.

Try saying that 5 times out loud.

You think LeBron James is ever like “I learned basketball, time to go take a nap!’

No.

He realizes that he can keep on getting better as long as he has the desire.

The thing with basketball is that there is a cap.

Eventually, father time does catch up preventing a player from playing after a certain age.

But in terms of communication skills?

There is no cap.

You can keep on improving as long as you want.

Heck, with communication skills, you age like fine wine.

The game is mental.

Your Challenge

1. Find out which skillset you want to improve in.

Consume some content on it.

I recommend different sources, from different creators.

And look out for patterns. The patterns which keep popping up are the core concepts.

Consume enough JUST to begin. If you get stuck on consumption, then you’ll get analysis paralysis.

Once you have an understanding of the fundamentals, TAKE ACTION.

2. Working hard.

During your learning journey, you are going to keep straying away from the fundamentals.

We all do.

There were tons of YouTubers who kept telling me the main fundamental was to just create videos.

But I got caught up in a bunch of busywork.

However, the more action you take by working hard, the more you keep coming back to the fundamentals.

Whether you are aware of it or not.

3. Working smart.

As you are gathering more and more data, I recommend reading the books or watching the videos you watched at the beginning of your journey, AGAIN.

This time, with your added level of experience, you’ll feel like you’re consuming new content.

It’s the same content, but a different you.

Reinforce the fundamentals again.

Allow your raw experiences to lock in with the words and concepts from consumption.

The locked concepts will now allow you to work smarter.

You found out the LEVERS.

4. Work hard AND smart.

With your awareness of the levers, guess what you’re going to do?

‘What?’

Work hard!

Go all in all those simplified tasks.

Show up with intent & leave with intent.

Follow this simple framework & you’ll figure out any skill that you’re physically capable of.

Grind Time.

Level Up Journey

The beauty of the level up journey is that you can keep leveling up.

There are many physical tasks that allow you to age with grace.

But mental tasks have infinite ROI.

Tasks like storytelling, creative writing, making Youtube videos, are hard to slow down on once you have the momentum on your side.

The goal is to create momentum for yourself G.

Do you best to work hard AND work smart.

A big part of the level up journey is about finding balance.

When you are too much on one side, make yourself aware & go to the next side.

And sometimes, you gotta be unbalanced for a while to balance yourself out.

Life is a game.

Start playing it.

– ArmaniTalks 🎙️🔥