I read a fantastic book recently called The Outliers. Among other pearls of wisdom, I read about The Beatles and how they got their start in music.
Back before music really became a ‘thing’, The Beatles formed their band simply as some musician friends wanting to have some fun. A local pub was looking for a way to keep patrons coming back night after night and so they contracted these young men to play live music five nights a week for four to five hours at a time.
So when no one was really focused on music, or at last thought they could make a career out of it, these guys were clocking up twenty plus hours per week of (paid!) practice. Accordingly, they just got so good from so much practice that people caught on to their music, and the rest is history.
So often in business, it can be easy to be looking for that silver bullet, that one magic thing that will change everything. While there can be these life-changing moments, for the rest of the time, once you’ve discovered where your talents lie and what you’re naturally good at, repetition becomes the key thing.
The key to being so good at something that you command both respect and more money is to do it over and over and over again. This part of success there is no short cut to.
So as you start a new year and you naturally stop and think of new ideas and strategies to help make this year a better one, stop and consider just continuing to practice, practice and practice some more so you get better and better at your work.
I know in my life, just the sheer number of hours I spend at my desk over many years means that while I might be getting older and a little slower, I am in fact getting better and better at business. Daily, I keep learning and working out how to both do what I do, and what our company does, better, simply by repeating this every day.
Practice really does make perfect, so don’t underestimate how important constant repetition is in your journey not only to success, but also in being able to maintain it.
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Matt Danswan is the CEO of Initiate Media, publishers of Entrepreneur Daily. He also blogs at www.mattdanswan.com and is the author of NOT Business As Usual.
