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Overnight Success


We’ve all heard the phrase, “overnight success.” What we think it means is someone whose talent or product was miraculously discovered out of the blue. Some idea or some concept was rolling around in someone’s head and then BOOM, it just exploded into success.

We relate to this concept because we live in a microwave society where everything happens NOW. We can send pictures and messages across the globe instantaneously. We can speak to long lost friends in real time even if they are thousands of miles away. We carry a powerful computer in our pockets which receives updates and news from everywhere in the world moment by moment. We buy now and pay later with no interest until April. We want the quick fix, the magic pill, the silver bullet. Instant gratification and immediate results are not just a desire in our culture, they are an entitlement. There’s a reason Instagram is so popular and there’s no such thing as PatiencePics.

This “results-right-now” expectation is an epidemic in our culture, poisoning mindset and perspective. The truth is, overnight success is a fairytale. Like a unicorn, it’s a cool idea but it simply doesn’t exist. We embrace the notion, not only because of the instant results, but also because “being discovered” puts the demands on someone else to find us and realize how awesome we are. It shifts the responsibility of success on “them” and not on “you.” We just sit here being special, it’s up to someone else to ensure we are rewarded and celebrated for it.

With reality television and the internet, people can go from being completely unknown to fame and fortune seemingly “overnight,” that part is true, but we rarely see the whole story. Before the breaking out on The Voice, there’s the secret struggle of thousands of hours of practice, hundreds of CDs sent out to radio stations and labels alongside countless performances in a dark, smoky bar in front of only half a dozen drunk patrons. Before the product goes viral on Shark Tank, the newly “discovered” inventor likely had hundreds of failed ideas, dozens of rejections from potential investors and unrelenting pressure from friends and family to “give up and get a real job”. We don’t see the countless hours in an old garage – the struggle to bring a dream to life – we only see the results of the relentless effort.

You must accept overnight success as a lie. There is no Prince Charming coming to rescue you and the Nigerian Prince who just emailed you with a promise of riches and wealth may be not 100% legitimate … or even your actual cousin. Embrace the fact that genuine, sustainable success is a result of habit, not an event. It is a habit of personal sacrifice, focused commitment and enduring excellence. It’s a path you choose.

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