The Harder You Work, the Luckier You Get: An Entrepreneur's Memoir

Product Information

Each of them, I felt, honored me by taking an interest in me. I learned social skills that many other young men, who knew only school and sports, didn’t learn, and that gave me an advantage. They helped to shape me and also, I would realize later, to shape my ideas on how a business owner should treat their employees. Dear Quote Investigator: I am a fan of the golfing legend Gary Player, and the Wikipedia article about him says he: “Coined one of the most quoted aphorisms of post-War sport”: The last excerpt is a small collection of maxims from the book “The Burman: His Life and Notions” dated 1896 [BLN]:

I know that plenty of other young people would not have had this reaction, but to me it was like that scene you saw sometimes in adventure movies, where someone opens up the pirate’s chest and everyone’s face brightens with the light reflecting off the treasure inside. You could open up the paper and it showed you where the money was. With this, a whole new era of my life began. Yet I did not grow up to become a midwestern Steve Jobs, some tech geek in a barn. It was never my interest to understand how the machines worked. I had no special enthusiasm for technology. In fact, I had very little exposure to new technology at all. We were one of the last families in Nebraska City to own innovations like air-conditioning or television, because my parents did not count those things among life's necessities. But maybe because we didn't have the new machines, I could see better what they could do and what a difference they could make in our lives. Suppose you are a house builder. You cannot build a house without first acquiring the land, getting the necessary permits, and assembling a team of workers. Once you have taken these steps, you can begin construction. But if you do not take action, your dream of owning a home will never become a reality. As the saying goes: Don’t Wish for it. Work for it.Thrilled as I was to have that factory income, I learned that I was going to have to find another way to be thrilled, because the work was not the kind I wanted. That was further motivation to get through college, even though the classes were difficult for me and my progress was slowing. I kept shifting time away from earning credit hours so I could earn more money to pay for them, which meant I fell behind the other students. In 1955 a version in the family of maxims is used by a popular actress and singer in musical theatre. Beyond the world of sports the expression is embraced by some in the world of show business [EMS]: To me, looking out that factory window at the beautiful convertible, the open road, the day that could take me anywhere, was a vision of freedom. To know that I have earned the freedom to do something, that feels glorious. But actually doing it? That’s not the point. Rewards, for me, were the wrong motivation. I wanted to work hard, make money, give it everything I had, and build something that would last for myself, my children, and the people who worked for me. I just didn’t know, yet, what to build.

But the version that Barber is quoted saying does not contain the word “practice”. Indeed, the version Barber uses invokes “hard work” and that variant appears more than a decade earlier in 1949 as shown further below. It is possible that Barber also used a version of the maxim containing the word “practice”, and Gary Player heard or was told of that version. Yet I did not grow up to become a midwestern Steve Jobs, some tech geek in a barn. It was never my interest to understand how the machines worked. I had no special enthusiasm for technology. In fact, I had very little exposure to new technology at all. We were one of the last families in Nebraska City to own innovations like air-conditioning or television, because my parents did not count those things among life’s necessities. But maybe because we didn’t have the new machines, I could see better what they could do and what a difference they could make in our lives. In 1962 Gary Player tells an anecdote about his fellow golfer Jerry Barber in his book “Gary Player’s Golf Secrets”. Player credits Barber with the well-known aphorism [GPGS]:My mother told me, “You ought to be proud of yourself, Joe, because he called and asked specifically for you. He wants you to work for him because you look like a person of worth. Take the job and prove to him that you are.” GPGD] 2002 October, Golf Digest, My Shot: Gary Player: Interviewed By Guy Yocom, Conde Nast. (Online archive of Golf Digest) link