Today we live in anage of immediate gratification. So many people are looking for aneasy fix to almost everything. Just the other day I heard of a recentstudy that concluded that our attention spans have dropped to 8seconds from just over 12 seconds back in the year 2000. That’s apretty big change in a relatively short amount of time. What thismeans is that we now have a shorter attention span than goldfish!
Like many of the“studies” out there we have to take these findings with a massivegrain of salt. Nevertheless, I am sure most of us would agree thatthe times we live in right now are fast-paced and the quest for theultimate shortcut to success can be found all over Facebook and theinternet at large.
There are countlessads and programs claiming “6 months to 6 figures” or “buildyour million dollar business part-time while sipping Corona’s onthe beach!” Although I do agree that in some circumstances peopledo achieve a crazy amount of overnight success and hit it BIG in arelatively short amount of time; that is the exception, not the rule.
To me, the realproblem is that the idea of overnight success is expected and manypeople think that when they jump into a new venture that they will bethe one to have that immediate overnight success. Don’t get mewrong; I am not saying it’s not possible, I am only saying that theexpectation that you will blowup overnight with minimal effort islike planning your retirement years on winning $10M in the lotto. Atthe end of the day, someone does win the lotto but there are millionsmore buying tickets than winning. Why not work your butt off andcreate your own lotto winnings?
There is a reasonnot everyone has a million dollar business, a Grammy or aprofessional sports career. It takes real work and hustle, often foryears before any sort of reward even starts to show up.
Please understandthat as I sit here writing this I certainly don’t have all theanswers and am the first to admit my guilt as someone who expected,and even felt entitled to overnight success. For years I jumped fromone opportunity to the next seeking those “6 figures in 6 months!”I would put in a bit of effort and expect my “big break.” But thething is, that big break doesn’t come without putting in the effortto create it. And often, the “big break” can be disguised as thecomplete opposite.
Recently I waslistening to a recoding of Napoleon Hill’s “The Law of Success”and also his insanely popular book “Think and Grow Rich” which by2015 had sold 100M copies! These two works are considered to be amongthe most influential publications in the personal growth category andwill be studied for generations to come. For those of you unfamiliarwith Napoleon Hill, I recommend you look into him and into his books.
In the recordingNapoleon was talking about the experience he had when interviewingAndrew Carnegie in 1908. At that time, Andrew Carnegie was consideredto one of the most powerful and richest men in the world. During theinterview, Mr. Carnegie induced Napoleon Hill to spend the next 20years of his life organizing the first philosophy of personalachievement. It was Mr. Carnegie’s vision to organize and create aformula for success that the common man could learn and study toachieve his desires. He wanted Napoleon to interview the greatestmost successful people that were living. People like: Henry Ford,Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and many more of the mostinfluential people of all time.
Now you may bethinking that for Napoleon Hill this was his ticket to fame andfortune. The richest most powerful man in the world is asking him tospend the next phase of his life interviewing the most powerful andsuccessful people in the world. This is a MASSIVE opportunity! Yes,it was a massive opportunity, however Mr. Carnegie was askingNapoleon to do it for FREE!
What? For free? Yes,the richest man in the world asked Napoleon to commit to a 20-yearproject with no guarantee of wages or success, for free! AndrewCarnegie would only help facilitate the introductions, nothing more.
Stop for a momentand think about your journey to success, would you be willing tocommit to a 20-year project with no guarantee of success? Would youeven be willing to commit to a 7-day project with no guarantee ofsuccess? Speaking personally, I know that I would have an incrediblyhard time determining what I would do if faced with the choiceNapoleon Hill was faced with back in 1908.
If we think of our own pursuits, especially our entrepreneurialpursuits, this is the journey of an entrepreneur. That unwaveringwillingness to commitment to something greater than ourselves withoutany guarantee that anything tangible will come from it. It is thiscommitment to building and creating something that makes thelikelihood of success possible. Yes, there will always be those rarecases where someone explodes their business overnight, but thereality is that most things worth building are built in the shadowsand then only “seem” to happen overnight.
I encourage you tospend a bit of time looking into the success of those you admire mostand learn what their journey was like. Most likely you will findyears of struggles and attempts that finally lead to something that“worked.” The only way to have a breakthrough is to keep puttingin the work. The only failure is in giving up!
Dustin Hogan is an inspirational speaker, entrepreneur, self-development mentor and the founder of the Disciplined Dreamer movement. Find out more here