The Art of Showing Up.

Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do. – Pele

One of my favorite things to watch is Award acceptance speeches; I really love seeing people achieve their goals and get rewarded through awards and championships. I live for those moments, and I find it to be very inspiring. I am a fan of award shows, biographical documentaries, autobiographies, and rags-to-riches stories. I really enjoy knowing what makes people tick, the hustle, the grind, the betrayals, the ups and downs, and most importantly, the successful breakthrough,

I know firsthand how hard it is to be a creative, it is a very lonely path, and it is tough because most times, you need to go against the trend, follow your guts, bet on yourself, follow your bliss and trust the process. Woody Allen once said that 80 percent of success in life is just showing up. Becoming successful requires showing up for the practice, rehearsals, following through with the study plan, exercising regimen, and staying consistent with your commitment. Napoleon Hill defined success as the progressive realization of a worthy goal. He also quipped that Success requires no apologies and Failure requires no alibis.

80 percent of success in life is just showing up. – Woody Allen

One of the common traits among many successful people is their work ethic; they are relentless in their pursuit, even obsessed in the pursuit of their goals. It is often said that we are rewarded in public for what we diligently practiced in the dark. Integrity is what you do when no one is watching; that is where you build character and the strength to weather the storm. In our social media age, many of us want to win the prize without paying the price, but the reality of life is that; if you take a shortcut, you would be cut short.

There are no shortcuts to getting to the top; it requires ambition, single-mindedness of purpose, hard work, and a bit of LUCK. The greats labor under correct knowledge because they know that you are either preparing or repairing in life. If life gives them a lemon, they make a lemonade out of it, they turn their mess into a message, and when they feel less, they get the lesson. No one has a trouble-free life; it is a roller coaster ride and especially for the artist. Creative, it is even more stressful.

“You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you’re down to your reflexes – that means your [preparation:]. That’s where your roadwork shows.” – Joe Frazier

Showing up is writing a blog entry every day, sitting down to write, reading that book, starting that business, making that call, following a routine day in day out. However, you don’t see the result immediately; that is how the success journey is. It is not a straight path. Just like Henry David Thoreau noted in Walden:

 “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

Be careful what you ask for; you might get it. Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve.” But to achieve the success you desire, you have to put in the work, be willing to be the hardest worker in the room, trust the process and be patient with the journey

There is no overnight success; what we mostly consider to be overnight success is someone showing up day in and day out. For example, Warren Buffet, one of the world’s most successful investors of all time, has been investing since he was 10 years old. Warren was inspired to start investing through a book he borrowed from the Omaha Public Library at age seven, One Thousand Ways to Make $1000. He is presently 90 years old; he has witnessed 8 different recessions in the American economy during his tenure as Berkshire Hathaway’s Chairman. As of December 2020, he is the world’s fourth-wealthiest person with a net worth of 85.6 Billion Dollars. He has been showing up for the past 8 decades and has seen the investment world’s peaks and valleys.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

Many of us do not show up for ourselves or the people counting on us because we are not ready to go through the pain, the toil, grind, and hustle required to become successful. No Pain, No Gain, No Thorne, No Throne, No Gall, No Glory, No Cross, No Crown. Getting to the top and staying at the top is extremely tough; that is why many of us would not try it or even achieve it. I know how hard it can be to try something new or leave your comfort zone, but that is usually the way to get to the next level.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

In his Autobiography, Bloomberg by Bloomberg,  American businessman and Politician, Michael Bloomberg writes about the art of showing up:

I’ve never understood why everybody else doesn’t do the same thing—make himself indispensable on the job. That was exactly what I did during the summer between my first and second years in graduate school, when I worked for a small Harvard Square real estate company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Students would come to town just to find an apartment they could move into in September; they were always in a rush, eager to get back to their vacations as soon as possible. We ran generic advertisements in the newspapers for three or four different sizes of rentals; each ad would fit twenty of our apartment listings. Every day, the newly arrived would-be renters got up early, grabbed the newspaper at their hotels, looked at the real estate section, made a phone call, scheduled an appointment with “the next available agent” to see housing that sounded appropriate, and went back to bed. Later in the day, they’d go out and actually look.

I went to work at six-thirty in the morning. By seven-thirty or eight o’clock, all potential renters visiting Cambridge had called our company and booked their apartment-viewing visits with whoever was there. I, of course, was the only one who bothered to come in early to answer the phone: The Adult “professionals” who worked for this company (I was “the summer kid”) started work at nine-thirty. Then, all day long, they sat in wonderment as person after person walked into the office asking for Mr. Bloomberg.

It’s said that 80 percent of life is just showing up. I believe that. You can never have complete mastery over your existence. You can’t choose the advantages you start out with, and you certainly can’t pick your genetic intelligence level. But you can control how hard you work.

It’s said that 80 percent of life is just showing up. I believe that. You can never have complete mastery over your existence. You can’t choose the advantages you start out with, and you certainly can’t pick your genetic intelligence level. But you can control how hard you work. I’m sure someone, someplace, is smart enough to succeed while “keeping it in perspective” and not working too hard, but I’ve never met him or her. The more you work, the better you do. It’s that simple. I always outworked the other person (and if I hadn’t, he or she would be writing this book).

‘We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.’ – Archilochus

In As a Man Thinketh, Author James Allen writes:

The thoughtless, the ignorant, and indolent, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of law, of fortune, and chance. Seeing a man grow rich, they say, “How lucky is!” Observing another become intellectual they exclaim, “How highly favored he is!” And noting the saintly character and wide influence of another, they remark, “How chance aids him at every turn!” They don’t see the trials and failures and the struggles which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience; have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the vision of their heart. They do not know the darkness and the heart aches; they only see the light and the Joy, and they call it “luck”; do not see the longing arduous journey, but only behold the pleasant goal, and call it “good fortune”; do not understand the process, but only perceive the result, and call it “chance”.”

They do not know the darkness and the heart aches; they only see the light and the Joy, and they call it “luck”; do not see the longing arduous journey, but only behold the pleasant goal, and call it “good fortune”; do not understand the process, but only perceive the result, and call it “chance”.”

All the Best in your quest to get Better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.