You’re Going To Suck At First
Nobody is born great.
You’re going to suck… at first.
The first time I picked up a guitar, I quit.
I’ve sang my whole life, but I wasn’t actually a good singer or performer until 2 years ago.
It took 15 years of working out and 3 years of CrossFit before I got my first pull-up.
The first YouTube video I ever made was cringe-worthy at best.
My point is this: nobody knows what they’re doing until they do. Getting good at something takes time, patience, and hard work. It takes studying, dedication, and a desire to succeed. It takes failure too.
“It takes 10,000 hours of intensive practice to achieve mastery of complex skills and materials, like playing the violin or getting as good as Bill Gates at computer programming.” — Malcolm Gladwell
We live in a weird time. If you tell someone they can make something happen in 20 minutes, they only want to work for 10. We think McDonalds employees deserve $15 an hour while someone with a college degree is fighting for fair pay in a new career. We are bombarded with get-rich-quick schemes and “11 side-hustles you can start today,” but it seems that a lot of this generation isn’t prepared to put in the actual work it takes to be successful.
And I don’t know who needs to hear this but, there is no such thing as an “overnight success.” I promise you, there have been years (if not decades) of hard work, triumph, failure, investments, and struggle behind that curtain.
The hard truth is, if you truly want something bad enough, you will make it happen… if not — you don’t really want it badly enough. You have to really give a damn about what it is you’re doing. Look at Oprah, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or literally any famous musician. The success (and money) came as a result of the work, passion, failures, and resilience. It takes time.
That is what separates the amateurs from the pros, the good from the great, and those who “almost made it” to the ones “living the dream.”
