Hard Work Stops Some People. Uncertainty Stops Everyone Else.
By Derek Neighbors on November 23, 2025
Andy Weir wrote stories and posted them to his blog. Chapter by chapter. Week after week.
For ten years.
3,000 readers. That was his audience after a decade of consistent effort. Not 300,000. Not 30,000. Three thousand people reading his work.
No book deal. No agent calling. No validation that he was building toward anything. Just showing up, writing, posting. Year after year. With zero proof it would ever matter.
Then someone asked if they could buy his latest story on Kindle. He’d been giving it away free on his blog, but he self-published it for 99 cents, the minimum Amazon allowed.
The Martian hit #1 on Amazon’s sci-fi list. Publisher bought the rights. Ridley Scott directed the film. Matt Damon starred in it.
Overnight success. Ten years in the making.
Here’s the question that strips everything else away: What kind of person keeps going like that?
The Comfortable Lie
We tell ourselves stories about why we don’t achieve extraordinary outcomes.
Not enough talent. Not enough resources. Not enough time. Not enough support. The market’s saturated. The timing’s wrong. The path isn’t clear.
And the big one: “I’m working as hard as I can.”
That last one feels true. You are working hard. Long hours. Real effort. Genuine commitment.
But let’s be honest about something: Hard work with guaranteed feedback loops is predictable. You show up, do the work, see results. Employment gives you this. So does lifting weights. Check your bank account, see the deposit. Check the mirror, see the progress. The feedback tells you it’s working.
Hard work with NO feedback? That’s where almost everyone exits.
And this shows up everywhere. Not just in launching companies or writing novels. Someone working three jobs to support family can develop this capacity or lack it. Do they show up with full effort when nobody notices? When the work feels invisible? When recognition never comes?
The single parent grinding through night shifts, maintaining dignity and standard despite exhaustion and obscurity, is training the same muscle Andy Weir trained. Different circumstances. Same principle.
The willingness to show up when you don’t know if it’s working. To keep building when nobody’s watching. To persist through years of zero validation. That’s what separates ordinary from extraordinary.
Not talent. Not work ethic. Not circumstances. Tolerance for uncertainty.
The Myth We Believe
Most people think hard work is the barrier. That if only they could push harder, stay disciplined longer, optimize better, they’d break through.
So they grind. Morning routines. Productivity systems. Time blocking. Optimization frameworks.
And they quit anyway.
Not because the work got too hard. Because the uncertainty became unbearable.
Watch what actually happens:
Month one: Excitement. This is going to be amazing.
Month three: Still excited. Early progress validates the effort.
Month six: Starting to wonder. Where are the results?
Month twelve: Doubting. Is this even working?
Month eighteen: The question that kills everything: “Am I wasting my time?”
The work itself rarely breaks people. It’s the silence. The empty inbox. The metrics that don’t move. The friends who stopped asking how it’s going because they assume you quit.
It’s showing up tomorrow when today gave you zero evidence it matters.
What the Stoics Understood
Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire. Absolute power. Unlimited resources. He could have done anything.
He chose to write about control.
Not controlling outcomes. Controlling only what was actually his: his effort, his character, his response.
The Stoic concept of prohairesis, moral choice, starts with a brutal truth: Most of what you care about isn’t actually within your control.
Whether your work succeeds. Whether people recognize it. Whether the breakthrough comes this year or next decade.
Not yours.
What is yours? Showing up. Doing the work. Maintaining the standard. Regardless of external feedback.
The Stoics understood that needing external validation to continue is just setting your own expiration date. The moment you require proof, you’ve made your commitment conditional. And conditional commitment isn’t commitment.
Marcus wrote for himself, not for publication. Those private journals became one of the most influential philosophical texts in history. But that wasn’t the goal. The goal was maintaining character regardless of outcome.
Same energy Andy Weir needed. Different circumstances.
What Uncertainty Tolerance Actually Is
Let’s be precise about what we’re talking about. Uncertainty tolerance isn’t just “being comfortable with not knowing.” It’s a compound virtue built from three classical elements:
Andreia (courage): The willingness to act despite fear of failure or wasted effort. Not absence of fear. Presence of action despite it.
Sophrosyne (self-control): The discipline to maintain standard when nothing external compels you to continue. Internal regulation independent of external reward.
Makrothymia (patience): The capacity to endure long timelines without bitterness or erosion of commitment. Sustained presence over years, not months.
You need all three. Courage alone becomes recklessness without self-control. Self-control alone becomes rigid without patience. Patience alone becomes passivity without courage.
Why is this REQUIRED for extraordinary outcomes, not just correlated?
Because extraordinary outcomes emerge from spaces where feedback loops are deliberately long or absent. If the feedback were immediate and clear, everyone would already be doing it. The absence of competition in truly uncertain domains isn’t accidental. It’s selective.
The uncertainty itself creates the barrier that keeps most people out. Which means the only people who reach extraordinary outcomes are those who can tolerate what others can’t.
This isn’t describing luck or advantage. It’s describing causation. The capacity to persist without validation is what causes you to still be there when the breakthrough arrives. You can’t be in position for the compounding without first surviving the fog.
The Real Test
Everyone can work hard when the feedback loop is tight. When results are visible. When progress is measurable. When validation comes regularly.
That’s not the test.
The test is: Can you keep going when there’s no proof it’s working?
Can you write for 3,000 readers when you wanted 30,000?
Can you build in obscurity when you expected recognition?
Can you persist through year three, year five, year seven of radio silence?
That’s the separator.
James Dyson built 5,127 prototypes before the breakthrough. J.K. Rowling faced years of rejection before Harry Potter got published.
The pattern is identical: Long periods of uncertainty + sustained effort = sudden breakthrough.
But we only see the breakthrough. We miss the decade of doubt.
The Character Forge
Here’s what those ten years did for Andy Weir that success never could:
They killed his need for external validation.
When you create for 3,000 people for a decade, you stop needing 30,000 to keep going. The process becomes its own validation. The work matters because the work matters, not because anyone’s applauding.
That immunity to external feedback? That’s what made him capable of handling the success when it came.
Most people who get sudden visibility collapse under it. They weren’t forged in obscurity long enough. They still need the feedback to keep going. So when the feedback changes, when the initial excitement fades, when the algorithm shifts, they crumble.
The person who can create without applause is unstoppable. Because nothing external can stop them.
Those years without validation weren’t wasted. They were forging capacity.
Not building the outcome yet. Building the person who could handle the outcome.
The Divorce
The Stoic discipline isn’t about not caring. It’s about divorcing your effort from your need for validation.
You still want the outcome. But you don’t need proof it’s coming to keep showing up.
That shift changes everything.
When you need external validation, you’re checking metrics constantly. Looking for signals. Trying to confirm you’re on the right path. Every data point gets weighted. Every piece of feedback analyzed. Every day without progress feels like evidence you should quit.
When you divorce effort from validation, you focus on what’s actually yours: the quality of today’s work. Not whether anyone noticed. Whether you met your own standard.
Marcus Aurelius again:
You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
Most people read that as philosophy. It’s actually instruction.
Stop trying to control whether your work succeeds. Control whether you show up with full effort regardless of success.
Stop trying to control whether people recognize your value. Control whether you build something valuable regardless of recognition.
Stop trying to control outcomes. Control inputs.
That’s not settling. That’s focusing your energy on the only thing that’s actually yours.
The Question That Exposes Everything
Here’s how you know if you’re committed to the process or just managing anxiety:
How often are you checking metrics?
If you’re looking at numbers daily, you’re not building something real. You’re seeking validation that it’s okay to continue.
Real work doesn’t need that. You know it’s good because you held the standard while creating it. Whether anyone else knows yet is irrelevant.
Andy Weir didn’t check his blog stats every morning wondering if he should keep writing. He wrote because he had a story to tell and the discipline to tell it well. The audience size was data, not a verdict.
Ask yourself: Would you still do this if nobody saw it for ten years?
If the answer is no, you’re not doing it for the process. You’re doing it for validation. And validation has a timeline. Real transformation doesn’t.
The Practical Reality
This isn’t abstract philosophy. It’s the actual practice that determines whether you quit or last.
Audit Your Quit Points
Look at what you’ve abandoned. When did you actually stop?
Was it when the work got too hard? Or when you couldn’t see if it was working?
Be honest about the distinction: There’s strategic quitting (you gained better information, found a more aligned path, recognized the goal wasn’t worth the cost). That’s wisdom.
And then there’s being stopped. The erosion that happens when you can’t tolerate not knowing. When the uncertainty itself becomes unbearable. When you need proof it’s working to continue, and the absence of proof makes you exit.
Most people tell themselves they strategically quit. Honest audit shows different: They quit during uncertainty, not difficulty.
The work itself is rarely the problem. It’s the erosion that happens when you show up daily with no proof it matters.
Stop Seeking Proof
Every time you check metrics compulsively, you’re training yourself to need external validation to continue.
Start training the opposite: Focus on process quality, not outcome feedback.
Did I meet my standard today? That’s the only metric that’s actually yours.
Reframe “No Progress”
The years without visible results aren’t wasted. They’re building capacity you can’t develop any other way.
You’re not building the outcome yet. You’re building the person who can handle the outcome.
Andy Weir’s competitive advantage wasn’t talent. It was ten years of immunity training against the need for external validation.
Accept Compounding Works in Fog
The breakthrough always looks sudden. The compounding that led to it never does.
Dyson’s 5,127th prototype worked. But 5,126 failures didn’t create 5,126 separate lessons. They created compounding understanding that only crystallized on attempt 5,127.
You’re not failing 5,126 times. You’re building the capacity that makes attempt 5,127 possible.
But you can’t see that in real-time. You only see it looking backward.
Where This Goes
The ancient Greeks understood that arete, excellence, is forged through sustained effort without guarantees.
Not despite the uncertainty. Because of it.
The difficulty of showing up when you don’t know if it’s working is precisely what builds the character required to handle success when it comes.
Remove the uncertainty, and you remove the forge. You get people who can execute with certainty but collapse without validation.
Keep the uncertainty, and you forge people who can create regardless of external feedback. Who can persist through doubt. Who can build in obscurity.
That capacity is the actual competitive advantage. Not talent. Not resources. Not even work ethic.
The ability to keep going when there’s no proof it’s working.
The Choice
You have two options:
Keep waiting for certainty before you fully commit. Keep checking for proof that it’s worth continuing. Keep requiring external validation to show up tomorrow.
Or commit and let certainty emerge from commitment. Focus on what’s yours to control. Build immunity to the need for proof.
The first path is comfortable in the short-term and devastating in the long-term. You’ll never endure the uncertainty required for extraordinary outcomes.
The second path is brutal in the short-term and liberating in the long-term. You become someone external circumstances can’t stop.
Most people need proof before effort. Extraordinary people create proof through effort.
Final Thoughts
Ten years of effort for 3,000 readers. Most people would call that failure. Andy Weir called it Tuesday.
Then The Martian changed everything. Not because he suddenly got talented or worked harder. Because he outlasted the uncertainty that makes everyone else quit.
Your competitive advantage isn’t working harder than others. It’s outlasting the doubt that stops them.
The question isn’t whether you can work hard. Everyone can do that when the path is clear and the feedback is positive.
The question is: Can you keep going when there’s no proof it matters?
That’s the test. That’s the separator. That’s what determines whether you achieve ordinary outcomes or extraordinary ones.
Hard work stops some people. That’s true.
But uncertainty stops most of the rest.
Not all. Some people strategically pivot based on better information. That’s wisdom, not weakness.
But honest audit shows most people aren’t making strategic pivots. They’re being stopped. The uncertainty becomes unbearable, and they exit.
Ready to build the capacity to persist through prolonged uncertainty? MasteryLab is the community for people committed to long-term excellence, not short-term validation. Join others who’ve learned to divorce effort from outcome and build through years of fog.
