Slow vs Fast vs Luck - Ideas and Progress

When will we make it?

When will the spotlight turn our way and the accolades pour forth?

Our contemptibly poor egos demand their due.

Anne Lamott would remind us that there is a huge difference between writing/creating and publishing/distributing ideas -- and if the art really matters, you'll focus on the former.

Yet in focusing, we often wonder how hard it will be. How long we must focus? Why do others seem to get the lucky draw more or earlier than we do? Our silly attachments to external forces and perceptions of justice so easily draw us away from the hard work of creating.

So Cal Newport's recent piece, “Does Luck Matter More Than Skill?” got me thinking about the fairness of it all. Just as Malcolm Gladwell's piece on “Late Bloomers” did back in 2008 (related video here).

Progress is equal to effort. Fairness has nothing to do with it.To begin, as Jack Foster has said, we must always be “idea-prone.” Wake every morning with the purpose to have, cherish and build ideas. Make that your rigorous purpose.

And recognize being lucky isn't about what is given by the cosmos to you, but what you make possible. As Brett Warner's comment to Newport puts it, “...the problem is that most people never put in the hours so that if luck strikes they can capitalize on it.” (The author of The Luck Factor, Richard Wiseman, noted back in 2003, “Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else.”)

Then progress asks for two things:

1) Ship often / Fail early

2) Don't stop

The sooner you know an idea can't scale, won't succeed, stop. But until you know, keep going. And then keep shipping and failing and succeeding as the case may be.

This is the life you signed up for.