Ep. 26 Hard Work is Dead: What actually builds wealth now

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Does hard work still equal success? For decades, we’ve been told that if we just grind harder, put in more hours, and hustle nonstop… success will eventually follow. But if that were true, why are so many people working harder than ever and still living paycheck to paycheck?

In today’s episode of the NetWealthNest Podcast, Jim Leboeuf breaks down one of the biggest money myths of the last century:

👉 Hard work alone no longer guarantees financial success.

Jim dives into the real reason why the old formula stopped working; including the rise of technology, automation, globalization, shareholder-driven corporate models, and the widening gap between productivity and wages.

Then we uncover the modern formula for financial growth: working smarter through leverage.

You’ll learn:

Why the “work hard = success” belief died decades ago

– How the 1970s shifted corporate priorities

– Why productivity skyrocketed while wages stalled

– Why adding more hours won’t solve money problems 

The 3 Types of Leverage You MUST Use Today

1. Time Leverage – Systems that make money while you aren’t working

2. Money Leverage – Using your dollars as tools to create more dollars

3. Knowledge + People Leverage – Accelerating your growth through mentors, books, the internet, and AI

Jim also explains how books, online learning, and even simple conversations can compress decades of experience into hours — giving you a massive advantage over those who are still trying to “out-hustle” everyone.

How this applies to:

– Growing inside a W-2 job

– Starting a side hustle

– Becoming an entrepreneur

– Building long-term financial stability

– Escaping the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle

The Net Wealth Nest Framework for Success

Mindset → Knowledge → Action → Accountability.

This 4-part system works whether you’re building wealth, improving your career, or launching a business.

If you’re ready to stop surviving and start building real financial stability, this episode is for you.

#NetWealthNest #FinancialEducation #SmartWork #WorkSmarterNotHarder #WealthBuilding #FinancialStability #MoneyMindset #PersonalFinanceTips #LeverageNotLabor #InvestingBasics #FinancialFreedomJourney #MoneyPodcast #SelfImprovement #AIandFinance #BuildWealth

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Transcript

Jim 0:31

We've all heard it work hard and success will follow. But if that's true, why are so many people today working so hard and still living paycheck to paycheck? Today we're gonna break down one of the oldest money myths out there. Does hard work. Equal financial success. Thanks for joining the Netwealth Nest podcast. I am your host, Jim LeBoeuf, and I appreciate you joining for another episode as we work to help you build financial stability in your lives and stop living paycheck to paycheck. Today we're going to talk a little bit about hard work. And more importantly, smart work. So let's start off with does hard work still equal success? The title's a little catchy with Hard Work is Dead, but the Hard Work Equals Success Formula was really developed in the early and mid 19 hundreds, where you had a lot of manufacturing and the hard work equals success rang true because the harder you worked, the more productive you were for the company you were working for and the wages were increasing at the same rate. that productivity was increasing for the companies and corporations that were around then in about 1970, some things started to change and there's a lot of caveats and there's a lot of variables that could equate to this. But a couple things to keep in mind, just to give you a little bit of background, is, there was A new formula for corporations to judge their success. And so instead of looking at just profit and loss as well as how they handled their employees, what benefits they offered. Many people my age have heard of things but have never experienced it. Things like a pension. Different types of stock options. Having ownership in the company that started to disappear as some of the common thought became actually more of the corporate responsibility is. Get as much return as we can for our shareholders, people who are buying stock in the companies. You also had things like inflation. You had other tax rates change where the tax rates started to decrease for corporations over time. You had corporations that moved to doing different things. So instead of a pension, maybe they moved to a 401k. So there Were several different things from an economic side and then the other side. When you look at the technology side, you really started to see the rise of technology in the seventies. When you talk about even computing back then, which was very basic, but was around you had the rise of automation happening, all these different things, technology started to explode. You also had the starting of more of a global type trade system. Across multiple countries as it became easier to move. Products around the world. And so all these different variables started to play in these roles, and the productivity of these companies started to move at a much faster rate up than wages did. And so with that, you find that now, as we fast forward all the way to, the first quarter of the twenty-first century where. Productivity has vastly outweighed wage growth over the last 25 years specifically, and really started about 50 years ago. And so because of that, the old adage does working harder, automatically equal success just doesn't ring true anymore. It's about value as a worker and what you're bringing to the market. And that's why we see so many people struggling is they feel like if they just put in more hours, if they just work harder, if they just do this, they will get more success. And that's not necessarily true just because you work. 80 hours a week versus somebody who works 40 or 50 hours a week doesn't necessarily mean you are going to have more wealth be better off in your life or do different things than that other person. It depends on the value and the productivity that you are bringing to that market in whatever type of work role that you are doing. So what does that mean? Okay, great, like working harder doesn't equal maybe more wealth, more pay, more stability in my life. how do I fill that gap? And that's where we introduce working smarter. So working smarter is the way that you can bridge that gap between the old adage of, I just work harder, I'll make more, I'll be wealthier to the new adage of I need to work smarter. And leverage is one way you can really take advantage of that. Taking something outta some of these corporations, playbooks and using it to your own personal advantage. So let's talk a little bit about a couple different leverages that you can use nowadays. First time leverage. How are you creating systems that make money when you're not working? The easiest and most common way to do this is through investing through the stock market. Many people have a 401k. Many people are investing in some sort of stocks on their own in brokerages or whatever. But over time, if you look at the history of the United States, stock market is continue to increase. The key is you've got to give it time. There are moments. Of time that are really volatile we can go as far back as almost a hundred years ago when we had the Great Depression. You had tons of volatility in the seventies and eighties around the stock market You had the early.com bubble in 2003. You had the. Great recession, which was from 2008 to 2010. You had COVI happen in 2020, and you saw a huge stock market dip. All those happen, but even though all those really bad things where the stock market dropped dramatically, 20, 30, 40% drop in the stock market, which. Money would think it would be catastrophic to anybody that was holding stock, but if you just gave it time to recover and balance out, the growth has just been exponential, even with all those issues in there. So time leverage and creating systems where you make money when you're not working is one way to do it. Stocks are an example owning real estate that you can rent out as an example. Anything where you're not having to trade hours of your day to get money back. is a version of using time as leverage, The other one that goes with that is money leverage. Again, how are you using the dollars as a tool to help you create more dollars? And it really stacks right on top of time, but. If you are using money to make more money Versus using yourself or your own physical labor to generate money. If you could take that tool to create more tools, that is using money as leverage and using as a tool. Again, the stock market is a great way to do that. Investing in businesses, investing in knowledge those things can be leveraged that you can use to help your dollars work for you in the background while you're not. Physically doing work. And then the third one I wanna talk a little bit about today is people and knowledge leverage. And since the internet, this has never been easier than it has been before. And it continues to get easier as we introduce things like AI into the world. And so using. The internet using books, using people, using your network, finding mentors, having, conversations with individuals to take their knowledge and apply it to your life will help you grow at an exponential rate no matter what you're interested in learning about. if you find somebody who has done something in that area. And talk to them and gather some of their knowledge and their time. You've just sped up the process. So let me give you a really rudimentary example of this. Let's say you are looking to start a lemonade stand, okay? On the corner of your street, we'll just do something basic that we've all probably thought about as kids, right? But before you do it, you know that your buddy did it two weeks ago. So you go ask him. He spent the entire day outside trying to sell lemonade. Spent the entire time, maybe the day before, preparing and making the lemonade and putting a stand together and all these things. So he's, let's just say he spent two days doing that. You go and you decide to talk to your buddy for an hour on Hey if you had to do it all over again, what would you do? What worked, what didn't work? And your buddy in the next hour. Tells you, oh, I would've set up my stand this way. I would've gone to that corner instead of this corner. 'cause it gets more traffic. I would've pre-made multiple buckets of lemonade. I also had the cooler because I didn't, and then it got warm. 'cause it was sitting outside and they give you this list of things and they're like, oh, these is the things I did do well, I had a really colorful sign. It drew people in. I did this, that and the other thing. I made sure that I had some starter cash so I could give change when people were paying for with larger dollar amounts, whatever it might be. In an hour, you've just gained two days worth of experience. Now think about that. When you listen to a podcast or read a book or any of these things, a book's a great example. Some people are pouring in 10, 20, 30 years of their experience in a specific category into this book to share with everybody that you're literally giving you. 30 years of data and ideas and mentorship in this book that might take you, if you could read it all in one shot, maybe three to five hours to read. And so let's say it takes you, five hours to read a book in five hours, you have gotten the cliff notes of what that individual learned over 30 years. And that is something that more people need to take advantage of. And with the internet, it's even faster. You can get cliff notes online. You can use AI to summarize things and pull out key checkpoints. You can scour the web for recommendations on what you're thinking about, all of those things. But the key is to use the leverage that is available to you. The other thing to keep in mind is to do that, you need to have some discipline, some direction, and that will lead you to sustainable success. So if you have discipline to take the time, even if it's so much less time than what that individual put into putting out that content, take the time to digest that content and know the direction you want to go. You are putting yourself in a better position for success than almost everybody else And so my joke at the video is hard work dead? It's not. It's just change. The hard work is finding what you wanna do and how you wanna do it. What drives you? Who are the other people out there that have done what you want to do? How are you going to utilize your time differently and more efficiently? And the same with your money if you're thinking about those things, that's the hard work. And then being disciplined enough to execute. It also contributes to hard work. Now, what does that mean inside of, I work at, X corporation. What does that mean in there? Maybe I'm not doing my own business, but maybe I'm working at a large corporation. I'm trying to make a difference. I'm trying to get promoted, trying to get raises, trying to increase my value with my company. The hard work is about being consistent, showing up. And being consistently available to execute against problems that corporation is trying to figure out, helping with their problem solving. And then honestly, we've kinda already talked about this, like learning and executing faster than others. that is going to make you stand out against your peers if you are working on those things. And so as you start thinking about how you can contribute, whether it be in the job you already have, whether it be a side hustle that you're working on, whether you're an inspiring entrepreneur and are looking to build a business, there are things you want to do. And the framework is build the mindset, get some knowledge, take action. And then have a way to hold yourself accountable. And that could be through just setting goals. It could be through having some mentors or some peers in your industry that you can set those goals with. It can be hiring coaches, whatever that is. That's the framework. And ironically, it's the same type of framework we have at Net Wealth Nest around just building wealth in general, right? The first big part is always getting your mindset in the right spot, understanding how you think and why you think the things you do. Gathering the knowledge that you need through books, internet, whatever you need, people, mentors, all of that. And then developing some actions that you are going to take, whether it be on building and saving for an emergency fund or driving your business forward as an entrepreneur, or just crushing it in your W2 job, so you're in line for that next promotion. Once you have those, the key to keep yourself going is that accountability. Somehow you want to build in accountability, either through goal settings, having mentors or peers out there that will help hold you accountable, will keep you going when things get hard or they might not be going your way. There's always bumps in the road, and so that accountability piece just keeps you on the right path and so you always keep moving forward. So all jokes aside, hard work still matters, but the way you're doing the hard work is the differentiator, and having that compound and using the leverage will help you get there without. Just pushing more and more hours of work into your schedule. If this episode is helpful, please share it with anybody you might think needs to hear this message. We'd love to hear your comments as well, so please hop in the comment box. If you're on YouTube, leave us a comment, rate and review us. Leave us feedback. If you're listening to us on your podcast, player of Choice, subscribe to our channels. We're constantly coming out with new content and we're always looking for ideas. From you our viewers, to answer questions that you might have about building your wealth and driving financial stability into your life. We want you to get outta that paycheck to paycheck cycle, and that's what we're here to help you do. Thanks for joining today. My name's Jim. Bye everybody.