Have you ever looked at someone who was successful and thought oh wow this one might be lucky, maybe it is an entrepreneur whose business suddenly took off or an athlete who trained so hard and finally won a gold medal, or a writer whose book became the best-selling book overnight.
Looking from outside, it can seem like the success happened so easily like someone that hit a jackpot, within one swing, but what if you were told that looks like luck. It is the result of 99 relentless strikes against a rock and you just get lucky. I just happened to stumble at the 100th strike that cracked the rock.
So picture me, I'm standing here in hand pounding a stubborn rock all day, I hit once twice, ten times but nothing happened I was sweating, I became tired and rest and I went to hit again then the 99 strikes I'm still hitting, then someone just stroll and watches me swing quickly one more time and crack the rock splits open.
To them it looked like magic, they didn't see the last 99 swings, they only saw the 100th one which cracked the rock and to them they think I am strong, I'm very lucky but they did not see the struggles behind what really cracked the rock.
That is how success works, the world loves to slap the label of luck on people who make it big, but what they did not know is that it is a result of persistence in disguise. Success isn't about just being perfect or just doing something and you get it at the go it's, about showing up every day. Hitting the rock and without breaking, it's about the 99 strikes nobody talks about.
Think about JK Rowling today. She's the queen of the try world but before her book, "Harry Potter", became a global phenomenon she faced so many, rejection after rejection. Many publishers told her no. She was a single mom scraping by writing a cafe to stay warm.
Her success might look like a lightning bolt of love but it was years of grinding with Relentlessness, persistence and believing in her story when she was in the middle of the world. When no one else did, each rejection was just a strike against the rock and she kept on swinging until it cracked.
Or should we consider Thomas Edison, one of the former story he tried thousands of times before he could find the filler, the right filament for the light bulb. Imagine the frustration the late nights, kept telling himself not to give up. When the bulb finally glowed, people didn't see the countless failure, they saw the luck.
They said he was a lucky inventor. but Eddie knew better. He famously said "I have not failed i just found 10 000 ways that won't work". That is not luck, that is persistence, showing yourself.
This the truth. We all have our own works.
Whether it's a dream job a personal goal or a career. We also want to build a business. Sometimes they feel like the work is just laughing at us, you put in the work but no results, yet you keep on pushing, you train for months and still don't win.
It's tempting to just throw down everything and just walk away thinking that I'm not just lucky, this is not my team. But here's the secret every fight counts, every single one, even if you can't see it at the main time, each swing you strike on the rock, this rock keep on weakening, bbringing you closer to the moment it splits right open.
So what's the difference between those who make it and those who don't? It's not talent, it's not about brains or some cosmic stroke of fortune, it's the courage to keep swinging when everyone else has quit. Successful people aren't luckier than you, they're just more stubborn, they refuse to quit they understand that the 99 strikes nobody sees are what made make the hundredth one possible.
Next time you are tempted to call someone lucky, pause and think about the unseen work behind their wing. And when you are chasing your own dream, think, pause, and let the lack of inside results fool you into thinking you are not caught out of it.
Don't let anything discourage you for the moment. Keep focused, keep swinging, keep showing up. Your work might crack on the, might not crack on the first try, or the 10th, or on the 91st. It might take a thousand hits, and it will still crack, but don't give up.
When it does, because when it finally cracks, the world might call it luck, but only you. The hard labor you went through. So grab your hammer, take a deep breath. The crack is coming, because persistence, not luck, is what made dreams come true.
Posted Using INLEO