Overnight Success

People want the quick fix, the quick achievement, the quick solution. People want it overnight. People struggle to think in decades, to think in the long term. The input we see on the news and social media grooms our minds to think everything needs to happen instantly. An idea that could not be further from the truth. Success takes time. Success rarely happens overnight. Sustained success almost never does. Success takes time. Success requires a commitment to producing, iterating, improving, and continuing on. Erase the idea of being an overnight success and focus on how you can be successful day by day. Stack days of success and achieve in the long run.

90% of podcasts do not get past their third episode. This is 1.8 million podcasters that quit. Of the remaining 200,000 podcasters left, 90% will quit after 20 episodes. That is another 180,000 gone. To be in the top 1% of all podcasts in the world you only need to publish 21 episodes. Using these statistics it is a fair assessment that many of these people quit early because they were not seeing immediate results. They lacked the perspective and understanding that success does not happen immediately. It takes time to craft a product people care about and want to support. The people who quit never found out what it takes. The people who stuck around until the 21st episode became the top 1% in the world.

MrBeast made approximately 120 videos on YouTube before he had over 1,000 subscribers. Fast forward to today and he now has 160 million subscribers. MrBeast planned for the long term. He thought in decades. He obsessed and continues to obsess over the art of creation. How his videos tell stories, how they hook audiences, and how he continues to raise the bar. He kept going and keeps going. He did not give up after a couple of videos with relatively low success. He pushed onward and reaped rewards based on consistency, iteration, and loving the process.

Overnight success is a plague people feel because of social media. We see artists have one song become a success all of the time. More often than not, that particular artist fails to have any resemblance of similar success. They got lucky with their timing, their style, their output and it fast-tracked them to “success.” This success often fizzles out. The Beatles performed thousands of hours in Germany at dive bars before they became world famous. They spent countless hours learning the art of performance and getting better at creating their sound and producing their aura. Overnight success is a myth.

Remove the instant perspective from your mind. Choose to focus on the long-term goal with a granular, daily commitment. You cannot be a success in anything you do without effort, iteration, and improvement. Keep going, success is around the corner, or another couple miles more, you will find it, just keep going.