I'm Ready For Ten

In articles and interviews that I've read over a number of years, successful people; internet marketers, entrepreneurs, people from a variety of interests and pursuits will invariably state that nine out of ten ideas they have for a new product/service/whatever are flops. They don't work, they bomb, they stink. But the same successful people will also tell you that the tenth idea, or eleventh, or the twelfth (don't get too hung up on the numbers here), that one idea is the one that's worth all the rest put together.

What most of us don't see, and what those who are truly successful know, is that success doesn't often happen overnight. Much to the contrary. Not only does it not happen overnight, success usually exacts a hefty price in the process.

It's easy to focus, when a person has reached a certain level of success and begins to be noticed by others, on the “trappings” of an individual's success; the relative ease with which they seem to move through business and through life. Successful people, the ones who've made it, they get the business, the best clientèle, the most customers, the promising opportunities and the most lucrative deals. But what we don't see at that stage of their success is what it actually took to get “there”.

We don't see the long nights, days or evenings spent locked away from family or friends, the frustration of having yet another project fail after hours, days or months of hard work and investment, the pressure of mounting or unanswered bills and financial obligations, or the pain and disappointment of the lack of support and understanding for what they're trying to accomplish and the goals they're attempting to reach. We're not privy to any of that, and so the picture appears very “rosy” and their efforts nearly “effortless”.

Well, I'm here to tell you that success is never “effortless”, despite much misinformation to the contrary. Olympic athletes train for years, even lifetimes to put everything they have on the line for just one chance, one opportunity to demonstrate they're the best in the world. Performers often go through hundreds or thousands of auditions, continually being told they're not good enough, not “right”, not “whatever” until that one chance, that one opportunity where they're able to demonstrate that they are indeed THE ONE. And visionaries like the Wright Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell or even Bill Gates endure years of being told what's not possible, when they know in their very beings that what they envision is possible.

So, if you really and truly are searching for success, if you're not fooling everyone, and most of all yourself, about what it is you want to do and what you want to accomplish, get your gear on and then Go. Suck it up, quit whining, making excuses or wasting time. If you've hit on failure...Welcome to the Club. If you plan to succeed, chances are much more failure is coming your way. But if you stick it out, if you can stand the excruciating pain of the failure experience, I promise you, you will succeed.

How do I know? Because I've seen the faces of success. I've heard their voices, talked with them personally and listened to their stories. And you know what I've found? Success isn't some disembodied phantom. It exists in real people. And some of those people are not so different from you or I. Not so different at all. But you have to be honest about what you really want, then you have to be willing to do what it takes to get it. Are you?

If so, battle on.

I'm ready for number ten. How about you?