“If the easy thing worked, you would have done it already.”
I wrote that down after it jumped out at me while I read Seth Godin’s blog the other day. He was writing about the lure of snake oil — “Send me X dollars, and I’ll send you my guide to how you can Y with just a little effort.”
Pretty much nothing is earned with “just a little effort.” The overnight success is nothing of the kind — she put in thousands of hours of work to reach the point where she succeeded last night, when we finally saw her for the first time.
No doubt for years at a time, she wondered whether it would ever be worth the effort, but she kept on trying because it was the only way to find out.
Some people succeed faster than others, but no one succeeds using shortcuts: If the easy thing worked, you would have done it already.
It’s best to keep that in mind as you slog away learning what you’re trying to learn so you can get where you’re trying to go.
