I am a fan of the idea of working smarter, rather than harder. Sure, when you are starting out in an endeavor, shit work is pretty much where you cut your teeth. For example, as a programmer, cleaning up other peoples' messes. It's also good experience in that it lets you see other peoples' mistakes and gives you an opportunity to see how to avoid them.

But I've watched a lot of people do shit work, and even work hard doing shit work. Working hard may be necessary but it falls far short of sufficient. Those who have merit approach the shit work as a way of looking for problems to fix, as a way of finding what can be done to reduce the level of shit, and so forth. Those who do not just keep shovelling away.

I'd suggest that finding the right connections is often a matter of demonstrating to the right people that you fit in the former category.