100 percent 100 percent

I recently shifted jobs, and I now have the pleasure of working alongside some incredibly hardworking, inspiring and successful people. These are people at the top of their craft. They are the leaders of the industry, and make things happen with sheer will and effort. Over the course of these past months, I’ve made an observation about their success, and how I think they did it.

The most important observation I have is that these people are always working. They are either working, or thinking about work. There is no ‘off switch’. They have built their entire life around this, and are happy to live and breathe this all the time. They are giving a hundred percent, a hundred percent of the time. They are constantly vigilant.

There is no surefire path to success; there’s a lot of luck involved. But my hypothesis for success, from seeing them, is to give 100%, 100% of the time, so that whenever luck strikes, your output is magnified. This I believe is the fundamental difference between those who have made it and the others who haven’t. And they continue to give a 100% to stay at the top. There is no off switch on their road to success.

This is true of producers, directors, actors and every other successful person I have had the privilege to meet in this industry. They work harder and think more than everyone around them. It is maddening, awe-inspiring, frustrating and crazy to work for such people. But I’d rather be working for them than anywhere else.