"People sometimes attribute my success to my genius; all the genius I know anything about is hard work."
You may have heard of Hamilton, the smash Broadway musical his rags to riches story inspired. Or, you might know him as the guy on the $10 bill.
Hamilton gave new meaning to the word "workhorse." As the first U.S. secretary of the treasury, he was essentially the architect of the American financial system. He wrote 51 of the 85 essays that comprise The Federalist Papers. He pushed for the establishment of the first national bank. He wrote some 28 essays which were instrumental in securing the ratification of the Jay Treaty with Great Britain. He established the U.S. Coast Card and founded The New York Post, the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the U.S. And, to boot, he married into one of the wealthiest families in New York City, even though he never accepted money from his wife or her family.
What's most flabbergasting is that Hamilton accomplished all this and more despite not reaching his 50th birthday. He died at age 49 following a deadly duel with Aaron Burr.
There's no question that Alexander Hamilton was a genius; in fact, he's considered among the brightest of the Founding Fathers. That this orphan immigrant from the Caribbean was able to rise meteorically to become George Washington's aide-de-camp during the Revolutionary War and eventually his treasury secretary speaks not only to his intelligence, but to his unbridled ambition and keen ability to make connections with the right people. Hamilton was smart, scrappy, and hungry. He was what we'd call a hustler -- a go-getter, if you will.
And yet, in the quote above, Alexander Hamilton attributes his success not to his intellect, but to his capacity for hard work. It's another way of saying you can achieve anything so long as you put in the time and effort. Sweat and tears can, according to Hamilton, take you farther than mere brainpower.
Hamilton wasn't the only Founding Father who acknowledged how far hard work took him. His arch-nemesis in Washington's cabinet, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), once posed this question: "Why is it that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have?"
You get the feeling that Hamilton and Jefferson were almost being modest about their intelligence. In my view, they achieved so much in public life because they possessed both attributes: smarts, yes, as well as a hard work ethic.
I concur with Hamilton that hard work can propel one to achieve things they never thought possible. But I would also add that in order to attain success, one must always believe in themselves. Hard work coupled with faith in one's abilities can take you places, as it did for hungry Hamilton.
Do you agree?
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