"The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied" – Proverbs 13:4
"The sluggard desires the gain of diligence, without the diligence that gains" – Charles Bridges
We all have goals that we want to reach and feats we hope to accomplish. Whether we reach those goals ultimately boils down not to how much we want it, but to how hard we are willing to work for it.
This proverb is one of my all-time favorite verses. When I was a young advisor, I taped this verse to my desk specifically because I wanted to internalize what it meant. Back when I started in the financial services industry, there were plenty of young college graduates hungry for success. What drew many of us to the industry was the financial success we could attain. In this industry, at least when I started, there generally wasn't a base salary, and your earnings were purely commission-based. That said, there was no cap on our earnings, so the ability to make a lot was available to anyone. Two things were required to succeed: you had to work hard, and you had to stick with it long enough to see the success come to fruition. All the young advisors who started with me had the same hunger for success. Few satisfied that hunger. The reason some succeeded, and others did not, came down to whether they applied those two points. Everyone was hungry, but only those who worked hard diligently were able to satisfy that hunger.
In this proverb, King Solomon teaches us that if we want to accomplish something, a craving for success alone will not do. That hunger must move into effort. That effort must push forward in diligence. The result of that diligence will be the fulfillment of the craving. To put it another way, success comes to those who work for it, not to those who only dream about it.
In another translation, this proverb says the soul of the diligent is "made fat." I love that translation because it implies that the diligent won't just barely have their desire fulfilled, but will have it fulfilled in abundance. In other words, the fruit of diligence isn't tiny success but an abundance of success.
Unfortunately, we have built a culture that is allergic to diligence. We assume that we can be successful through little effort. Even in some people's investment choices, the desire is to turn a little into a lot in very little time. Social media lets you see many people's massive successes (or at least perceived successes). It doesn't show you how much work led to that success.
I realize some people may have quickly attained wealth or success. But they are the exception and not the rule. Many of the most successful people were not overnight success stories. They worked diligently for years, even decades, before achieving their goals. One of my favorite books is The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley. One point Thomas Stanley makes in this book is that the vast majority of people who become millionaires did not cross that threshold until their 50s. For those who achieve millionaire status, it wasn't because of some major windfall either. It was many years of slow building that ultimately made them millionaires. They were diligent, and their diligence was richly rewarded.
All of us have a desire to accomplish something. We have, in the words of this proverb, a craving. If we want that craving fulfilled, it will require turning that craving into diligent work. Those who choose to do nothing will receive nothing and continue to hunger. For those who choose to work diligently, they will be fed the fruits of their labor in abundance.