What you do behind the scenes does matter
Nobody cares about your failure. We all pay attention to other people’s success. Success is what we obsesses about. But have we seen the things successful people did behind the scenes?
Ballet performance is graceful in the theatre, but it takes the ballet dancers 10 years of practice to be able to give the one minute performance on the stage.
The speeches on TED talk are magnificent, but the speakers have put so many years of effort into their niche in order to become an expert before they got an opportunity to speak. For example, just look at one of my Chinese friends’ erhu performance and speeach on TED talk who started learning erhu at the age of seven.
The websites and software you are using are simple and easy to use, but it may take 10 years to keep deleting unnecessary features to make improvement. What you see today is totally different from the day-one version.
You might want to have a muscular body, become a best selling author or get promoted in your company. If it is one of the most important things in your life, have you started to do something behind the scenes? What do you do after work? What you are doing now is the prediction of your future.
We all have survivorship bias. We said it is easy to do something because it seems easy to do. It is easier said than done.
Producing great work always takes time, practice, patience and persistence.
To become a manager, stop thinking like a technician by reading some great management and leadership books and observing what you current manager does and learn from him/her.
To be a good speaker, keep watching great speeches everyday and learn, but also join Toastmaster to practise your public speaking every week.
To become a best selling book author, start to write a lot more often while keeping reading great books.
As Mahatma Gandhi put it: “The future depends on what you do today. Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
Ask yourself this one question: “Have I done something behind the scenes today?” If not, maybe you should start taking actions behind the scenes now!
