34: 80 Percent of Success In Life is Showing Up
Woody Allen once said that “80 percent of success in life is showing up.”
Is that true? I think it is.
What does it mean to “show up” in the broader sense? It means putting forth a little effort.
It is absolutely astounding to me how many people don’t actually “show up” for life.
How many people do you know that complain about the same thing every day but do nothing to change it?
“I hate my job”, “I hate where I live”, “I don’t have time for my family”.
Now there’s no magic bullet to solve every problem but I can guarantee that if you do NOTHING to address your complaints, the problem isn’t going to go away.
Now where am I going with this? After all, if you are reading this email there is a good chance that you are one of those people that DOES show up.
That’s good news for you. You see, one of my secrets to success as an entrepreneur is not that I am particularly good at anything. It’s just that I’m working in industries where few others even try!
The bar is so low that a little bit of effort goes A LONG WAY!
Take the medical industry for example. Doctors are spoiled. People are sick so they look for doctors. They are used to referrals from other doctors and if there were no referrals they wouldn’t know what to do to drum up business.
I can tell you from personal experience as a guy who hit the airwaves with TV, radio, and internet advertising for my cosmetic surgery business—I clobbered most of them because they weren’t willing to spend a dime on advertising.
The point is that the entrepreneurial world is your oyster—particularly if your work is an industry that is run by mom and pops and ESPECIALLY if you are not in a glamorous field that people want to get into. I learned that on my second and third start-ups—even easier then cosmetic surgery!
So, if you have a little bit of motivation, some guts, and work in a boring industry, take a careful look around you. You could be sitting on a gold mine!