Overnight Success=Myth

The other day I had a conversation with my friend, and we discussed our current position in life vs where we started. My friend is a well-known musician. He went from no following to amassing a worldwide audience. What shocked me was that some of his critics assume that his success was "instant" or "overnight." The phrase "Overnight success" is a huge backhanded compliment. It discredits the achievements of others by making them seem easily obtained.

Any success that seems as if it was overnight always has a long backstory that is unknown to the public. The only thing the public sees is the attention that the high achiever gets. Take for example an elite producer who regularly crafts tracks for A-list artists. You may see him or her pop up and take the music industry by storm. People will say things like "man they blew up overnight!" Those people don't know the process. That producer could have experienced years of rejection. But one day they created a record that caught a vital person's ear, and the rest was history. Overnight success at its core is when a person's work is effortless due to years of preparation. Remember that.