In partnership with
In the summer of 2016, I went to Cluj-Napoca, Romania for a summer internship with AIESEC.
That’s where I met my friend Brenda (Bre). She is from Brazil.
In 2016, as a 19 year old, I wasn't thinking about careers or internships. More like what music festivals to go to. Same summer, Bre was thinking about the festivals too, but she had already interned at Apple and Disney. We became really good friends and have stayed in touch since.
When I moved to Boston for grad school in 2022, Bre and I had our annual catch-up. She was working at Delivery Hero’s Venture Capital group in Germany. She told me she had scored a 720 on her GMAT and was coming to MIT for her MBA the following summer.
I complimented her: "Congratulations — you're one of the smartest people I know."
She replied: "I'm not smart. I just work very hard."
I felt embarrassed the moment she said it.
Calling her smart was me playing down everything she had worked hard for.
Bre and I at the Northeastern University convocation - May 2024
I grew up in a rural town in Taxila. My mom and dad were both teachers. And like all parents, they wanted the best for us.
They realized that the local environment in our village wasn’t ideal so they created conditions for us where hard work & academic discipline was the default. We never went out to play in the streets. Didn’t have many friends locally. It was their way of protecting us from the world they interacted with every day.
My brother, Zia, and I would get home from school around 2pm. At 4pm, Sir Muhammad Ali would come to teach us English Grammar and Math. 5 to 6pm was another tutor for sciences. 7:30 to 8:30pm was Qaari sb for Urdu and Quran. In between we would sneak an hour to play cricket.
Zia was a year ahead of me. So with the tutors, I was always studying his textbooks. Teachers in my school were annoyed by me. For example, in grade 4 - I was already on grade 5 materials at home - so I'd sit in class and wait for them to make a mistake. I was always ready to call out my teachers even if it was a typo. Asking advanced questions and catching their errors was my favorite activity in school.
Me, Zia with my Mother & Madam Rizwana at HITEC Taxila (I think its 2005).
For Zia and me, getting a perfect score and coming 1st in class in all the exams was a baseline expectation. Getting the second position was considered a failure. Every time I did well (which was often the case), I'd always hear from my teachers & family: "He's so smart. He's so intelligent."
Nobody ever said “Oh you worked so hard” or acknowledged that my parents had created conditions for us where hard work was the default.
I saw this pattern all around me. When a kid did well, people said: he/she is so smart. When somebody struggled, they said: he works really hard, but he's just not smart / intelligent enough.
Being labelled “Hardworking” was the consolation prize. It was what you said about someone who was trying but didn't have it.
Being hardworking was, implicitly, a bad thing.
So I internalized the opposite. I was smart. Smart people don't need to work hard.
When I joined the boarding school in 2009, I went from top 10% in the class to bottom 10% within a year. I just stopped putting in the work. Same thing in undergrad. I graduated with a 2.61 GPA. I knew I could do more. I just never did.
I still had this arrogant confidence though that when I decided to try, it would come together.
In August 2018, when my classmates were graduating and starting their careers, I was still a super senior in my university.
That was the reality check. I have written about what happened then in more detail here — but the short version is: I course corrected. Behaviorally, at least.
The following few years, I would pass all three CFA exams while working 80-100 hour weeks, take the GRE exam, move to the United States, finish graduate school with a 3.89 GPA, build a social media platform, land a job in New York.
Hard work was a major component in all of that. But I still never acknowledged it. I never stopped and thought: I am working hard right now. I just did the things I was supposed to do, and things happened.
My identity had never updated. I was still in my head the smart kid who happened to also be doing a lot. “Hardworking” wasn't a word I used for myself.
By 2024, I had accomplished most of my short term goals. But I didn’t feel I had earned any of it.
I felt that this is just what someone with my background and opportunities is supposed to do. I wasn’t proud of myself. And that bothered me.
Then in March 2024, I watched Paul Johnson run the length of America (3000 miles) and Russ Cook run the length of Africa (10,000 miles). I was in awe of how much effort that must have required.
I ran the last 10 miles with Paul Johnson as he finished his run across America in New York. I saw how proud he was at the finish line. Not happy. Proud. The kind of proud that only comes from something truly earned.
I wanted that for myself.
So I decided I would run 1,000 miles across Pakistan and raise $1 million for charity.
I was never a runner. I had no business doing this. But after six months of training — 13+ miles a day + at least an hour in the gym daily — on November 3, 2024, I started running 1,600 kilometers towards Karachi from Islamabad.
Doing something physically hard breaks you in ways nothing else does. It also makes the effort impossible to ignore. You can't reframe it as talent. You can't call it natural ability. It's just you and hours you've put in.
November 2024 - Me hitting the Tarmac on National Highway, somewhere in South Punjab
After 35 days of running ~28 miles a day in extreme heat, on the national highway, living in the remotest parts of Pakistan, I crossed the finish line on December 8, 2024.
The only emotions I had were pride & gratitude. I was extremely proud of my own effort. I had worked hard for something. Both physically & mentally. I had done something I was never supposed to do.
That was the day I course corrected on my identity. I started acknowledging myself whenever I was working hard.
The reality is that Bre is probably both exceptionally hardworking and intelligent.
Success rarely comes from a single trait. It's usually some combination of intelligence, hard work, family, mentors, network, timing, luck, and opportunities.
But hard work is the variable we control the most. It's also the one we tend to undervalue.
Being called smart feels good in the moment. But it can quietly reduce the urgency to work hard. It can train us implicitly to respect the wrong thing.
Congratulate the effort, never the outcome. And learn to give yourself the credit.
No theory. No slides. Just pipeline.
Most founders know their product. Few know how to get it in front of the right people. In this hands-on session, Clay + HubSpot for Startups walk you through ICP definition, prospect list enrichment, and AI-personalized outreach. You launch your first sequence before the session ends. June 18. 11am ET / 4pm GMT.
Three small things before I go:
Hit reply with anything — a word, an emoji, a thought. I read every one.
If this lands in spam or promotions, drag it to your primary inbox. Helps Gmail learn we're real.
Find me on Instagram at @tabarakrehman_ — that's where the conversation lives between sends.
If you enjoy reading my Newsletter, forward it to a friend or colleague; it would mean a lot to me. If you didn’t like it, feel free to send me hate mail ❤
Have a fantastic week. Keep on Keeping on.
Tabarak Rehman