How do you make a movie that in less than two hours shows events that might last decades or a lifetime?
The bottom line is that you have to leave things out.
And if you want your movie to be interesting and exciting you have to leave out the boring bits.
For instance, if we were going to make a movie about the life of Olympic Gold Medalist Usain Bolt, we want to show all the exciting moments of glory. We want to see him winning.
And we don’t want to see all the dull and repetitive routines, eg: all the training that he does.
The end result is the Hollywood Effect – the mistaken view that success comes easily, instantly and overnight. Plus, it relies on lucky breaks, dramatic turning points and stunning breakthroughs.
While this is appealing, it’s not reality. In particular, if you want Career Mastery, your journey is unlikely to look like this.
Of course, you’ll have your moments of pivotal decisions but most of the time it will appear from the outside as slow, steady and possibly, mundane progress.
This is one of the reasons that resilience and grit have become such popular topics over the past few years.
If you want to achieve long-term career success there are no shortcuts. Essentially, you will need to stick at things for long periods of time. And that means months and years.
The big question is this: Do you have grit?
Angela Duckworth has created the Grit Test. Of all the possible factors, this test is the leading predictor of who drops out of West Point military academy during the first summer. And just to get into West Point you have to be the best of the best.
Take the Grit Test today – there are only ten multiple-choice questions to answer. It’s free, it’ll only take 3-5 minutes to complete and it might just highlight what’s holding you back from the success you deserve.
Take care,
Mike Allen