“Overnight success” is an oxymoron (or outright mischaracterization) in most cases. One of the most powerful contexts for this comes from the inimitable Bill Gates. “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.”
I’m a believer that you can—very rapidly—bend the line up-and-away from the status quo and move into a real change process. It has been my stock-in-trade for much of my adult life. But, staying the course of that initial shift requires the hard kind of commitment. The commitment where you choose to actively renew it each and every day, as a priority among many others. As we get older we may eschew things that have a longer horizon (and I have done this myself), saying, “I can’t commit to things that I can’t see coming to fruition by the time I am [XX age].” We can choose to be victims of time or use what is available to us, now.
I only recently read this Gates quote and it shifted my perspective “overnight” because of the obvious truth in it. If you see the passage of chronological time as a limiter to taking action, creating the best of the rest of your life may be an unintended casualty. If you have waited to become a musician or a writer or chef or ski bum—or entrepreneur—whatever lights you up; just begin, without regard to when “success” may come. How many times has your success been “overnight” anyway? ~Will Keiper, co-author (with Steve Chandler) of The Leader and The Coach—The Art of Humanity in Leadership
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Credit: This is a blogpost by Will Keiper at www.theleaderandthecoach.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/willkeiper/
