My first job in high school was as an inflatable bouncy house installer. The days were long, starting around 6AM and often not wrapping until 10PM, and there was no shortage of heavy lifting, tangled cords, and angry customers in the heat. What made me successful was my determination to save up money. I’ve been at this for a while, though. I spent four years in San Francisco, valet parking cars for a tech startup in the Uber for X craze. We willed the company into moderate success, not because the economics were favorable or the technology was revolutionary, but because we worked harder (and longer) than anyone else.

There is this myth we tell ourselves that successful companies are full of high-IQ individuals who are better educated and more connected than you. Sure, but they also commit themselves to winning. They wake up every morning and get to work, solving problems, driving sales, and building alignment. Every day, these people show up with an overly ambitious multi-column to-do list and a desire to execute. They know that the odds of success are dismal – but persist longer than anyone else would to win.

We could read off countless statistics concerning startup survival rates; nearly every company that starts does not make it. As failures mount, clients leave, revenue declines, and investors pull financing, continuing to spend 12 hours a day on that very same project kinda loses its luster. I get it. But if the improbable nature of success was going to stop you from trying to build something new, you would have done so already. Committing to working through the worst days with sheer grit and discipline is the only path I know that works.

There is no magic to success – just hard work.