I've put in more than my fair share of extremely long hours.

I grew up working on farms. Pig farms, dairy, & turkey. I detassed corn, did landscaping, I worked plenty of 5 to 9 work days in the summer and had night jobs in high school too. None of that made much money at all. The way to make money is not by the hour. Scaling your efforts has been proven to be much more beneficial.

The problem with threads like this is that there's so much generalization that happens but the bigger point seems to get missed.

Most boomers I have met are extremely unremarkable, average people who have done well for themselves in large part to economic factors more than simply their own "hard work". They are a generation that surfed on the world's reserve currency, racked up massive debt, ended pensions after they secured their own, and purchased a good deal of real estate beyond their own personal needs.

I keep hearing how people scrounged together money on their tiny income at the gas station or wherever to buy their first little home. Wow that is touching, the way I interpret that is that a person who was working at a gas station with a tiny income was able to purchase a home "back in the day".

Yes, increasing personal productivity will better your chances of success. We get it. There are plenty of fridge magnets that say as much.