You don’t need to work 24 hours daily to become successful. It also requires the right brain to ensure that you achieve your goals. However, all the most successful people have a strong, usually unmatched work ethic. Therefore, hard work is arguably the most essential metric to success.
However, some people have a work ethic that’s basically out of this world. They combined this hard work with high consistency and achieved remarkable and usually industry-defining success.
This article contains all you need to know about the hardest workers in history. You’ll understand who these people are, their routines, and how they made them remarkable individuals.
These are the Hardest Workers in History
History has seen many great men who’ve contributed immensely to their field. One thing is synonymous with them all–they all dedicated an incomprehensible number of hours to their craft. Here are some of the hardest workers history has ever seen.
1. Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison is one of the greatest inventors of all time. His teacher once told him that he was too stupid to learn anything. However, he’s not the type to let other people’s opinions stop him, and he has over 2,300 patents.
Thomas Edison was undoubtedly intelligent, but his hard work is a heavy part of what made him great. He would stay up for long hours working and wouldn’t stop unless he got it right. Even when he got it right, he went to work on other tasks with the same dedication as the last.
The peak of his career is his greatest invention, the lightbulb. He worked on it thousands of times before perfecting it. Edison also demanded a lot from his workers, and they contributed to why his company enjoyed much success.
2. Kobe Bryant
It’s a common misconception in sports that the best are the most talented. However, it’s a popular and factual saying that hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. When you dig into the lifestyle of a sportsperson like Kobe Bryant, you’ll understand why he’s one of the greatest basketballers in the world has ever seen.
Kobe would spend hours in the gym doing basketball drills and mastering his free throws. He would train harder and longer than his teammates, and it’s clear with the way he performs. In the off-season, Kobe would spend six hours daily, six days a week training, to stay in shape.
His dedication is another massive part of why he’s one of the best. He infamously changed his shooting technique rather than take a break from the sport to nurse his dislocated fingers. Such dedication and hard work are reasons he’s among history’s hardest workers.
3. Tim Cook
Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple, one of the world’s biggest technology companies. He became the company’s CEO in 2011 and quickly built upon the legacy of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs didn’t just select him as the CEO; he was serving as Apple’s Chief Operating Officer.
His work ethic hasn’t gone under the radar. He has no days off and even organizes employee meetings on Sundays. Cook would begin his usual work day at 4:30 am and work into the late night hours.
It’s not surprising the company has continued to soar under his watch. He doubled the company’s revenue and profit and took it from being worth $348 billion in 2011 to $1.9 trillion in 2020.
4. Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban is one of those whose success is pure hard work. He started from scratch and slowly worked to the top of the spectrum. Mark Cuban undertook many jobs, including selling garbage bags and running newspapers. He sold PC software for a while before being fired, which was when he set up what became Microsolutions.
Cuban’s work ethic has been noticeable from his employee days. He would go out of his way to research solutions to issues that bother customers to provide them with the help they need. This habit increased his knowledge of computer software and helped him immensely when he started his company.
Even when he started his company, Cuban stayed up late researching how to better things. His work ethic and perseverance have always kept him ahead of the rest, and it’s not surprising that he’s one of the best entrepreneurs in the country.
5. Li Ka Shing
Li Ka Shing is a Hong Kong billionaire and business magnate estimated to be worth around $38 billion. He’s another many who achieved success mainly due to hard work and one of Asia’s richest men. Li Ka Shing dropped out of school at age 15 after his father’s death to work in a plastic factory.
It would take him just four years to become the general manager of the same company due to how hard he worked to up his sales skills. He would work nearly 16 hours daily, which puts him well above the rest.
Li Ka Shing maintained his hard work, which brought him more success. Coming from a poor background to reaching that level in the Hong Kong business ladder made him one of the hardest-working men of this generation.
6. Albert Einstein Albert Einstein once said: “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” It shows that although he’s smart, he still spends hours of the day looking at answers for the next theory he’s working on.
He would work for 10 hours a day, six days a week. His consistency with this hectic schedule is why he became arguably the greatest physicist in history.
7. Jeff Bezos
Who doesn’t know Jeff Bezos? He’s the founder and CEO of one of the “big five” technological companies, Amazon. The story of how he founded Amazon in his garage is infamous, but not many people think about how hard he worked as a startup and growing the company to where it is.
Bezos has always been a hard worker since his high school days. He worked almost non-stop when he founded Amazon and would attend to customers’ orders even when he was supposed to be asleep. He still tends to his customers’ needs and works almost as hard as when he started, even now when he’s the world’s third-richest person.
Conclusion
All work and no play make Jack a dull boy, but sometimes, it’s best to sacrifice play to get success. The people on this list have their leisure time, but it’s a fraction of what they invest in their respective careers. When starting his first business, Mark Cuban went seven years without going on a vacation.
It’s best to understand that hard work isn’t the only metric that defines their success, but the fact that they channel it into the right thing is the most essential. Continuous learning, creating goals, staying disciplined, and overcoming failures are also habits that can define success.