>In a corporate setting, the advice on: Get good at sales, Be hard to compete with and Build a network, will get you much further than working hard. Working hard in large corporation will in many case only grind you down, if don't manage to make your work visible. It's not only in the US, other countries don't view working hard so favorably anymore, and I think it's due to it being tied more directly to stress, rather than success. Hard work alone will make a person stressed, but does not guarantee success, selling yourself and networking will be much more likely to result in success if applied alone.

>Overall it is good advice, as a whole, perhaps more so if just want be happy in you profession, feel secure and have a sense of belonging.

Something is missing in that formula because this is exactly why we have the toxic culture we have in a big corp today killing creativity, promotion first attitude, and all kinds of politics. It's pretty screwed up. People are not robots. I hate these pieces of advice that treat people as soldiers with no emotions. If you want to go A you have to do B. then it will work. Yeah right...