Success – Not an Overnight Destination

Over the last year I’ve come across some amazing examples of breathtaking work (articles, quotes, infographics) specifically on this topic.  I thought I would share them with everyone in one spot.  I will update this over time if I come across further examples but here is what I can share with everyone right now.  If you have some other great examples please post them in the comment section. I’d always enjoy reading more on the subject!

• Store growth (infographic) of Walmart from 1972 to 2009 in the United States.  Time-elapsed map to 4300 + stores
• Store growth (infographic) of Target store growth from 1968 to 2010 in the United States.  Time-elapsed map to 1600 + stores

The key takeaways for me from the above two infographics was:

1. Target is nearly 20 years behind Walmart regarding the number of U.S. stores.
2. Both stores have experienced remarkable growth over the last 48 years.
3. While Target has a smaller retail base than Walmart (roughly 40% as many stores) Target’s growth rate has been steady and their overall growth rate in the last decade exceeds Walmart.

• Another great resource I came across regarding overnight success was Chris Brogan’s great blog series “What it takes to be an overnight success.”  Chris shows the early morning routine, the travel involved with business success, he talks about not making excuses, assessing competition, etc. Rather than summarize all the great points Chris makes I’d encourage you to read this blog series if you haven’t.  It is solid stuff!  In it Chris had a great observation about success by saying “You rarely win a race by looking sideways.”  That quote reminded me of a a great quote from Warren Buffett:

“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield” – Warren Buffett

• I recall a great comment from Seth Godin’s blog that goes something like this ” The challenge for marketers is to figure out what daily progress looks  like and obsess about that.”  The same thing can be said for all of us regarding our “success”, both personally and professionally.  What is success for us? What are we trying to measure progress towards. Can it be measured, tracked, etc?

• The next resource I’ve enjoyed over the last 20 months or so has been Success Magazine.  The Publisher, Darren Hardy, recently released a book (or audio CD) entitled The Compound Effect where Darren directly addresses the sensational marketing messages bombarding people in today’s society. “Get rich, get fit, get younger, get sexier… all overnight with little effort for only three easy payments of $39.95.” As Darren says “These repetitive marketing messages have distorted our sense of what it really takes to succeed. We’ve lost sight of the simple but profound fundamentals of what it takes to be successful.”  Darren’s book is full of timeless success strategies and I highly recommend it.

• Another resource I came across this amazing infographic (bottom of post due to length) the other day via Guy Kawasaki and his Twitter account.  Obviously, I retweeted it to my Twitter followers but I thought it was worth sharing with everyone who missed it.  There are truly some amazing statistics on Walmart and their size relative to some of their competitors.  As I read/watched thes infographics a quote from the very wise personal development leader, Jim Rohn, popped into my head.

“You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight” – Jim Rohn

The above quote is quite refreshing because we can’t attain success overnight (professionally or personally) but we can decide to take firm actions that will put us in the direction of success.  Typically it isn’t one action that generates success; rather it is the compounding of daily actions towards a goal that enables longer-term success.  How many economic upturns/downturns do you think Walmart and Target had to go through since 1962? How many changes did they have to make in their first 15 years to attain “overnight success” in the 1980s and 1990s?

• The final resource / article I want to share with everyone is an an article by Martin Zwilling (aka @StartupPro on Twitter who has over 200,000 Twitter followers and tons of readers) in which he shows numerous examples of how long it took various technology companies to become “overnight successes.”  Examples provided were Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google and Facebook.

To your success,

Dan Ross