People always want to know how other people achieved their success. Most of the time, they want to know so they can emulate it, so they can do what works. They’re hoping for shortcuts, secrets, tricks, magic bullets, and shiny objects. The answer they get is usually something a lot less sexy, and something that sends them searching for another answer.

The two factors that drive success for most people and cause others to ask how they did it are often simple, plain old ordinary, run of the mill hard work and a single-minded purpose.

Successful people are awake and working when less successful people are fast asleep (this is both true in the morning and the evening). They know what they want and they’re up doing the work.

Successful people are also working when less successful people are watching television and surfing the Internet. They trade time spent pursuing leisure for investments in reaching their goals, whatever those goals may be.

While the less successful bounce from one thing to the next, the successful diligently grind away on the one thing they are doing until they get it across the line. They don’t dabble in work; they go all in.

It’s fashionable to talk about work-life balance. It’s out of fashion to suggest that you should spend more time working. It’s been a long time since it’s been in fashion to suggest that one simply work harder, and it may never again be fashionable. But for most people, greater success would as surely follow working harder as day follows night.

Sometimes you just need to work harder.