When you look at it through the keyhole of our limited mind perception, the idea of manifesting something out of nothing seems to be a bit of a bizarre notion despite being beautiful and poetic. The reason why it appears so strange for the rational mind is because manifesting something into reality requires us to suspend our habitual way of operating through the mind, with all the judgments, expectations, doubts or seeing things through the lens of the past, and step into the flow of life. It also requires that we stop observing and following the assumed law of cause and effect as we know it, and start realising that in the state of flow we are fully participating in creation and that we can cause an effect rather than just being affected by causes outside of our own reach. In the state of flow the coin of our perceived world is flipped over.

What do you believe is the key to success: hard work or smart work? Modern Instagram entrepreneurs advertise the possibility of working 4-hour workweeks whilst living in a big mansion including a swimming pool and a brand new Ferrari in the garage. But is it truthful? Can you work 4-hour weeks and earn an income that’s far beyond average? In other words: is there still any value in hard work? In this article, you’ll learn what hard work is and how much it contributes to your success. Let’s dive in! The Value of Hard Work Hard work is the idea that you work more hours than the average person in your field. And that within these working hours, you go work hard on your craft. A great example of someone who works hard is Elon Musk. Musk puts in at least 80 hours of work every single week and is known to make over 120 hours. Why? Musk puts it this way: “Nobody changes the world working 40-hours a week.” In other words, the more hours you put in, the faster you get where you want to go. This sounds pretty obvious and it is. But to profit from the value of hard work, there’s another important element to look at. Smart work. You see, working hard without working smart is like hitting a nail with your fist instead of using a hammer. You might go hard at it, but the process takes you much longer. In other words, working hard isn’t a great strategy on its own. Being thoughtful about your work is as important as working hard. But when you look at Instagram entrepreneurs it’s tempting to think that you can work smart enough to game the entire system. So is there enough value in hard work to make it worth the effort? Why Hard Work is Important The fact that you get more done if you work more hours a week, should not surprise anyone. And the fact that most successful people in the world work more hours than the average person, should tell you something about the correlation between hard work and success. Look at the work ethic of these highly successful people: Jeff Bezos put in 12-hour working days during Amazon’s early days and did this 7-days per week; Venus and Serena Williams woke up early to play tennis before school and came back after school for their second session; Tim Cook is the first person in the offices of Apple and the last one to leave; Mark Cuban didn’t give himself a holiday for the first 7 years of his business; Michael Jordan’s insane work-ethic is why he is such a legend now, according to his coach Phil Jackson; Kobe Bryant would practice his basketball skills every hour of the day; Gary Vaynerchuck worked 19 hours a day for the last 20 years. What these examples show you is that you’re likely to increase your chances of accomplishing real success when you’re willing to put in hard work. But there’s something much more to consider first, and that’s self-awareness. But we will get to that in a second.

If you studied highly successful people or worked with them, as I did, you noticed common traits. They exist. Some of them were naturally inclined to have them with a big thumbs up for their proper education at home. But many did consistent effort to acquire them.

At any moment in time, there are many thoughts going on in our mind, some which we are conscious of and some which we are not even aware of. What is a thought? It is a form of mental energy that is created by the person who has the thought. The energy in the thought causes a vibration which is passed into the environment or to the person to whom that thought is directed.