Winning the lottery is a "good result", without a hard work.

Moving a pile of dirt from one place to another, every day, is hard work without a purpose.

Working hard (and smart) on problems you are passionate about gives you the best chance at succeeding.

And about impressing someone with your work, I have a rule - impress yourself. :)

I think hard work is a necessary precursor to good results. Although, that hard work may not be of the kind most people associate with office work of the past.

Fair point, hard work is not well-defined. I interpreted and meant it in the sense of throwing a lot of working hours at the problem. And I think this is not necessary for good results and may actually be counterproductive in some cases.

For my part, I think so is boredom.

That's non-responsive. We know what the deaired outputs are. The question is what are the necessary inputs.

In that case, "more and more hours" is often not a necessary input