Elon Musk says that “You should work for 80 to 100 hours a week because then in four months you will cover what it takes a 40-hour person a year”.

This article is about hard work versus smart work and what are our thoughts about these two. I have some examples to share about this. Have you ever asked your candidates how hard you work? And they answer you with “I work smart.”

If someone gives me that answer I’ll instantly recognize that they are not hard-working and they usually don’t have much. I have yet to meet a person who says he works smart and does make a lot of money.

I will go through seven different people here, and if only a working smart strategy holds true how their strategy applies to them.

1. CEO of Apple

The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook starts his day at 4:30 in the morning, he is the first person in the morning and the last to leave. You don’t think Tim works hard and smart?

Because that is the argument right here, people say I work smart, I don’t need to work hard. Well, how about Tim cook? I’m sure he works smart as well.

2. Mark Cuban the owner of NBA

How about Mark Cuban the owner of NBA and investor in many American companies. He says he didn’t take a vacation for seven years. Of course, he worked with a combination of both strategies.

3. Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos said in the early days of Amazon there were 12 hours a day and 7 days a week and they were working till 3 a.m shipping books. He is right now the richest man in the world with a total of net worth exceeding $1.3 Trillion.

Now process all these guys who frequently say in interviews that they work smart, its the most insane thing in the world.

4. Venus and Serena Williams

Venus and Serena Williams, they use to wake up 6 a.m in the morning practicing their tennis tryouts when they were 7 and 8 years old.

5. Micheal Jordan

The fifth person on my list is Micheal Jordan. Phil Jackson the coach of Leaker and Chicago Bulls said about Jordan that “ Hard work is what made Micheal Jordan a legend.”

6. Marissa Mayer

Marissa Mayer is a former CEO of Yahoo and was the 4th person to join Google. She used to put a hundred and thirty hours a week on Google. I’m pretty sure she is smarter than most of us out there.

7. Jeffrey Immelt

The last person I will cover here is CEO of GE (General Electric) Jeffrey Immelt, he worked 100 hours per week for 24 years. We should know that he also worked smart for those 100 hours per week, he wasn’t a crazy lunatic who didn’t know what he was doing.

If you are also looking to enhance your team’s productivity, track your employee’s weekly and hourly time through employee time tracking software.

So, the next time you meet a person who says “Hey, I work smart.” You should already know what to think about that person, he doesn’t work hard, he actually doesn’t work smart he’s probably not that smart even.

Because why would all these super intelligent and super successful people work extremely hard and smart.

The right answer to this question should be “I’ll do whatever it takes to achieve my objective for the company and I’ll work as hard as I have to get the job done.” and you can also throw in there “and I also work smart.”

I want you to remember Elon’s work ethics, Marissa’s work ethics as you are thinking about this. You should always see it as “I’ll do whatever it takes to make this business successful and take it to the next level.”

Let’s end this with a quote from Thomas Alva Edison. And he said,

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

I’m sharing this knowledge and hacks and things that I learned to help people not make as many mistakes and become even more successful faster.