“So many people have the talent to succeed but are not willing to put in the time and hustle to get there… You have to hustle or you will get beaten! I am so tired of debating if talent or heck content is enough . . .”
Gary Vaynerchuk – Author of ‘Crush It’
It is human nature to rely on our natural abilities, raw talent, beauty or strength especially when we are young. As we get older our abilities, beauty and raw talent change or begin to fade. What are you doing to develop your talent?
Many of us have heard the term overnight success and have probably bought into the concept of becoming one. Three examples of overnight successes are The Beatles, Bill Gates, and J.K. Rowing. What do these three individuals have in common? One thing for sure is that they and are extremely successful, but how many years did it take?
The Beatles: The group formed in 1957 and played together for 7-years before it hit U.S. soil in 1964. They played approximately 12,000 hours before coming to America.
Bill Gates: In 1968 Bill started doing real-time programming as an eight grader. He was IBM’s second choice in developing their DOS operating system and in 1980 Bill formed Microsoft.
J.K. Rowing: She was on welfare and didn’t complete the first manuscript for Harry Potter until she was 30 (in 1995) and has become the first billionaire author.
Tips on Becoming an Overnight Success
• Talent Alignment – Identifying the domain or industry your talent or skill set best aligns with.
• Put in the Time – Malcolm Gladwell put it best in his book Outliers in chapter two when he discusses the idea of the 10,000 hours rule.
• Just Do It – Quit waiting and make it happen.
Anybody can become an overnight success; the problem is that the term overnight success is really an oxymoron. This means that it takes years of overnights and not one particular overnight of waking up the next morning and being a mega success. The snippets discussed above are not about people who have superior talent alone who just wake up one day or experimented with something one time and become an instant success. They are individuals who kept waking up day after day consistently putting in the hours, not just depending on talent alone to become successful.
What are you doing to develop your talent to become an overnight success?
Posted by Hajj Flemings who is the Tech MBA Online Program Ambassador. You can follow him on twitter @hajjflemings.