Introduction
You were told by your parents to work hard. By your teachers. By your coaches. Work hard and you will get everything that is coming to you.
Sope Agbelusi calls that one of the biggest lies ever told about success. He knows too many people who poured their heart, soul and energy into organisations and never got the reward. People with glowing feedback who were fired anyway because the company cut back. People overlooked while less talented colleagues passed them by. The problem is not their effort. It is where the effort is pointed.
Effort is a component, not the whole equation
Sope is careful with the argument. Hard work is undoubtedly important. It is needed. It is a component of success. What it is not is all-encompassing, and the higher you go, the less raw effort counts. The line he keeps coming back to: most people fail not because of a lack of effort, but because their efforts are misdirected.
Fix your 80/20
Drawing on his economics and finance background, Sope applies the Pareto principle: 80 per cent of your outcomes should come from 20 per cent of your effort. For most people it is reversed. They pour in 80 per cent of their effort and get 20 per cent of the outcome back.
His own corporate story shows the flip. He spotted a redundant handover in his finance role, backed himself on skills he had built long before corporate life, selling sweets at school, running a promotions company at university, and quietly took over the whole sales process. The money he brought in got noticed, because money talks. The company adapted his role rather than lose the revenue. New role, new team, new responsibilities, more money. Not by working harder. By being strategic.
There is a mindset point buried in that story too. People routinely discount their own experience as "not corporate" and not relevant. Pushing aside what you are good at leaves you focused on what you lack, and that is exactly the space where imposter syndrome plays.
Even senior leaders get this wrong
This is not a junior problem. Sope works with VPs, CIOs, CPOs and directors who manage hundreds of millions, sometimes billions, strategically for clients, and still cannot apply strategy to their own careers. It is not about titles or position. It is about the person.
Why strategy matters even more when bias is real
Sope speaks plainly from his own experience as a Black man: bias and discrimination exist. He tells the story of calling out an external client who was rude and condescending to one of her own colleagues. She accused him of bullying and demanded an apology. He refused and asked for an investigation. Fifteen people were on the call; everyone who spoke confirmed he had done nothing wrong. He was prepared to walk away from the contract entirely, because they were wrong. He never apologised, and the relationship continued, partly, he notes, because of the revenue he was generating. Even with the evidence and his character known, the accusation was still entertained. That is the point: bias exists.
He lists what many Black executives and underrepresented leaders face: unconscious bias in performance evaluations and promotions, lower compensation, aggressions that create hostile environments, exclusion from informal and hidden networks, fewer development opportunities, and protective hesitation, where feedback is withheld because the giver is scared, so you never learn what to improve until the P45 arrives. Working five or ten times harder does not manoeuvre through any of that. Strategy does.
The strategic playbook
**Build relationships beyond your team.** Colleagues, mentors and industry leaders across organisations and industries. When something happens, advocates can speak for your character and doors open that do not depend on one company.
**Make your work known.** It can feel uncomfortable, especially culturally, but visibility to key decision makers matters. Signal your impact, get into the rooms, volunteer selectively for high visibility projects rather than piling on unpaid extras that change nothing.
**Build a personal brand.** Done strategically, people and opportunities come to you. Read your organisation's culture first, and adapt how you show up.
**Stay adaptable.** Learn new technologies and methodologies that make you more valuable. Sope's role was created for him because he was valuable, adaptable and willing to try.
**Understand power dynamics.** Know the connections and the informal networks. What makes or breaks someone in an organisation is rarely hard work; it is often the dynamics around them.
Work hardest on yourself
Sope closes with a quote from Jim Rohn: work hard at your job and you can make a living; work hard on yourself and you can make a fortune. The one thing you should always be working hard on is you.
