As someone who's reached my 40s and never been particularly concerned with any more financial success than it takes to pay my bills, I wish I had heard more advice like this when I was younger. Because it's still pretty good advice.
You don't have to throw every ounce of effort you have into your career and work harder than everyone else. But you do have to have skills someone wants and put in effort to build a career. How specialized those skills are and how much effort depends on what the job market is like and what your goals are. In any case, no one owes you a job -- but they might give you one if you can demonstrate that you can help them meet their goals.
Whether that's waiting tables or a low level professional job or a "rock star" developer or running your own business empire, those basic principles are still true. And there's nothing wrong with any of those as long as you're happy with the tradeoffs involved.
You don't have to throw every ounce of effort you have into your career and work harder than everyone else. But you do have to have skills someone wants and put in effort to build a career. How specialized those skills are and how much effort depends on what the job market is like and what your goals are. In any case, no one owes you a job -- but they might give you one if you can demonstrate that you can help them meet their goals.
Whether that's waiting tables or a low level professional job or a "rock star" developer or running your own business empire, those basic principles are still true. And there's nothing wrong with any of those as long as you're happy with the tradeoffs involved.