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One of the most common character traits of high achievers is the ability to work longer hours than average performing people. If you want to become great in any endeavour, it’s essential to not only work smart but hard. The importance of working hard is also emphasised in the Bible, (Proverbs 24:33-34)”A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.”
Below we have compiled a list of accomplishing individuals from a wide range of fields who worked 18-20 hours a day.
1. Aristotle Onassis – 1906-1975 (Billionaire shipping tycoon)
“Don’t sleep too much or you’ll wake up a failure. If you sleep three hours less each night for a year, you will have an extra month and a half to succeed in.” – Aristotle Onassis
2. Donald Trump (Real estate tycoon and 45th President of United States)
“How does somebody that’s sleeping 12 and 14 hours a day compete with someone that’s sleeping three or four?” – Donald Trump
4. Dana White
Image source – mmafighting.com
“I literally require no sleep. I can go to sleep for two hours, three hours, and I get up and can kill it.” – Dana White
“My life is so good, I don’t want to waste any minute of it sleeping. I hate sleeping.” – Dana White
“It’s not that I don’t get a lot of sleep, it’s that I don’t require a lot of sleep.” – Dana White
4. Steve Stoute (CEO of Translation)
“There are people and ideas that I have, that inspire me everyday to bust my ass. I bust my ass. We could put up anybody on the work and I’ll go hour for hour, I don’t care about that, I don’t care anything about that, about hours or being tired and not getting sleep. Because you can’t say you want something and complain about what it takes to get it! That does not even calculate in my brain. That’s a very important thing that people need to read.” – Steve Stoute
5. Simon Cowell (Music Entrepreneur)
Image source – LA Times
“I work very, very hard and I expect people who work with me to do the same. I don’t believe in a five-day week or an eight-hour day. I believe in 24/7.” – Simon Cowell
“I want to be able to get hold of someone on holiday or at 3am if there’s something I need. The same goes for me.” – Simon Cowell
6. Silvio Berlusconi (Media tycoon and former Prime Minister of Italy)
“I am constantly working and I don’t sleep more than two hours a night.” – Silvio Berlusconi
7. Thomas Edison – 1847-1931 (American inventor and businessman)
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”- Thomas Edison
8. Richard Branson (British serial entrepreneur, founder of Virgin)
To create a business you’ve got to, initially, work day and night, weekends. It’s really hard work.” – Richard Branson
9. Elon Musk (CEO of SpaceX, Tesla Inc)
“I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that… you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.” – Elon Musk
10. Jack Dorsey (Co-founder of Twitter)
“All my days are themed. Monday is management. At Square we have a directional meeting, at Twitter we have our opcomm [operating committee] meeting. Tuesday is product, engineering, and design. Wednesday is marketing, growth, and communications. Thursday is partnership and developers. Friday is company and culture. It works in 24-hour blocks. On days beginning with T, I start at Twitter in the morning, then go to Square in the afternoon. Sundays are for strategy, and I do a lot of job interviews. Saturday is a day off.” – Jack Dorsey
11. Narendra Modi (Prime Minister of India)
“I have been an early riser since the beginning. My initial life demanded labour and effort for survival, so I am very hard working by nature. I would toil more than my peers. Be it sports, theatre activities or even reading a book, I would feel I should read faster and more books than the others. Lazing around is not in my nature.” –Narendra Modi
12. Strive Masiywa (Founder of Econet Wireless)
“It took me about five years to build my first business. I started building it before I was married and had children. It was everything to me. It was not unusual for me to spend 48 hours at the business non-stop. I was young and bursting with energy, drive, ambition, passion… and I poured it all into my little business. It grew quickly, and soon people heard about me. I had what they call in Africa “a name,” and it was because of my business.” – Strive Masiyiwa
13. Karren Brady (Sports executive and entrepreneur)
“When I’m in London I work constantly, every minute of the day. I don’t stop for lunch, I don’t go to the gym. I work from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep. I’m not exaggerating. The first thing I do when I open my eyes is check my emails. I work on the way to and from the office, and in the evening I set up dinners, which are really meetings, with people I need to see, or attend business functions. I once worked out that if I drank less water I could use the toilets less, which meant I could fit more in one day, as it was a long walk to the ladies from my office. How sad is that! When you’re on the way to where you want to be, it’s a test of your endurance. How much can you take on and get through? Nobody got successful leaving work at five o’clock.” – Karren Brady
14. Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks)
“You have to eradicate the human behavior of relaxing, the human behavior of feeling like we have won. What I have said in the last two years at Starbucks is, “There’s no celebration, there’s no victory lap, we haven’t done squat.” I feel as if people need to understand that success is not an entitlement, it has to be earned, and earned everyday.” – Howard Schultz
15. Tyler Perry (Movie producer and entrepreneur)
“I work three months really hard, nonstop, and then I take a month off. Then I do it all over again. I work hard but I give myself four breaks a year.”- Tyler Perry
16. Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo)
“I pace myself by taking a week-long vacation every four months.” – Marissa Mayer
17. T. Boone Pickens (Oil magnet)
“A lot of people ask me, how can I do what you did? And I said, well, the first thing is, is that you’re going to have to work hard.” – T. Boone Pickens
18. Will Smith (Actor)
“I’ve never really viewed myself as particularly talented. I’ve viewed myself as slightly above average in talent. And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening, work ethic.” – Will Smith
19. Martha Stewart (Media entrepreneur)
“I find that when you have a real interest in life and a curious life, that sleep is not the most important thing.” – Martha Stewart
“It’s an exhausting lifestyle, and I always say sleep can go. It’s not important to me right now.” – Martha Stewart
20. Sean “Diddy” Combs (Entertainer and entrepreneur)
“Work hard…then work harder. The difference between me and you is I’m working while you’re sleeping. When you think you have done enough for the day… Keep working.” – Sean Combs
21. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Actor, politician and former governor of California)
“I’ve always figured out that there 24 hours a day. You sleep six hours and have 18 hours left. Now, I know there are some of you out there that say well, wait a minute, I sleep eight hours or nine hours. Well, then, just sleep faster, I would recommend.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
22. Eric Thomas (Life coach)
“I studied the top millionaires in the world and I discovered that they all wake up at 3-3:30 in the morning.” – Eric Thomas
22. Timothy Sykes (Financial trader)
“I’m just a normal guy with a not-so-normal work ethic. For the past decade, I worked my ass off researching, stock trading and learning about the financial markets.” – Timothy Sykes
“My work ethic—I don’t stop until I know there isn’t anything more I can do to help give me the best possible chance of success. Sometimes this requires 20-hour days, sometimes 2-hours, it all depends on the opportunity.” – Timothy Sykes
23. Jerry Weintraub – 1965-2015 (Hollywood mogul)
“I made a choice for career and for success. When you make that choice, you give up something – you have to give up something. I worked 24 hours a day and still do, seven days a week. I don’t know about Saturday or Sunday, I don’t know about holidays and vacations.” – Jerry Weintraub
24. Margaret Thatcher – 1925 – 2013 (Former Prime Minster of the United Kingdom)
“I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.” – Margaret Thatcher
25. Darryn Lyons (Photography entrepreneur)
Image source – Vjesnik.com.au
“If I have to work around the clock to make something happen, then I’ll do it. People don’t want to work the hours I work, and nobody works as hard as I do. They simply can’t do it.” – Darryn Lyons
“In this job, a typical working day is one that never ends. I’m usually awake by around 5 or 6 a.m, and most of the time I don’t get to bed till 2 or 3 a.m.” – – Darryn Lyons
“Working like a dog during the week wore me out, so I would try and catch up on sleep at weekends. I didn’t want to let a minute go past without trying to make money. To this day, I won’t go near washing and ironing. It’s such a bad use of time.” – Darryn Lyons
26. Damon Dash (Serial entrepreneur)
“I think you have to give yourself goals and until you achieve them you have to work all day everyday till you get them.” – Damon Dash
“I work hard, so I surround myself with people that work just as hard. It’s important if you want to create a successful brand. Also, the concept of being “tired” doesn’t really apply to me. In fact, I don’t even consider “tired” tired. If you want to succeed and be successful, you can’t let it bother you.” – Damon Dash
“You have to walk it like you talk it. My greatest example is myself and if I can continue to work so can they, you know what I mean? Unless you got more money than me, I don’t see how anybody could be relaxing. And even if they have more money they shouldn’t be relaxing with it. If you don’t have what I have, and I am still putting in the work, I don’t see how someone else still is (relaxing).” – Damon Dash
27. Michaelangelo – 1475-1564 (Iconic sculptor and painter)
Image source – Thinklink.com
“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” – Michelangelo
28. Indra Nooyi – Nooyi is the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo the second-largest food and beverage business in the world. According to CNN, she sleeps 4 hours a night. She developed this trait before being in the CEO position. She used to work to 5 a.m as a receptionist to earn money while getting her Masters at Yale.
29. CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, is known for being the first to enter the office and the last one to leave. He has developed a reputation for sending e-mail up to 4:30 in the morning.
30. Sergio Marchionne, Fiat CEO is known to sleep a meagre of 4 hours a day. The Italian-Canadian executive has built a solid reputation for turning around Italian automotive group Fiat and transforming US automotive group Chrysler from bankruptcy to profitability with his exceptional leadership skills.
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