The belief
Hard work polishes a person. Long, honest effort almost always turns into something good, even when you fail at the thing you were working on, because you come out of it sharper than you went in.
Where it comes from
My parents taught it to my sister and me by doing it. I’ve been saying “hard work polishes a person” since at least 2014, to coworkers moving to new jobs and to younger cousins starting out.
How it shows up for me
I like people who put in the work, and I try to be one of them. When something is hard, I treat the difficulty as part of what I’m getting, not a sign I should stop.
But I’ve also burned out more than once, and I’ve written that it felt like modern slavery. In 2020 I even wrote that success was 70% luck, 20% preparation and 10% hard work. Both things are true for me: the work polishes you, and the work can grind you down if nobody, including you, is watching the dose.