Most people get frustrated and quit because they are measuring their success up against an unreasonable standard.  What happens is, they hear things on television or they read news online, like this, which was in the New York Times, this morning:

“The Vikings sold more than 3,200 season tickets in the first 24 hours after news broke Tuesday that Brett Favre was going to Minnesota. The team’s chief marketing officer, Steve LaCroix, said the team sold about 11,000 single-game tickets during that time as fans clamored over Favre’s arrival.”

Or they hear how Apple sold 1 Million new iPhones in the first quarter… or how so-and-so just did a product launch and sold $1.4 Million over the course of a week.

What you have to realize is that each of these situations are very rare, isolated instances where demand for something specific happened to be out there.  And through good marketing or good luck, frankly, serendipity intervened and created this miracle.

What you also need to realize is that most success stories didn’t happen overnight.  They took years and years of silence, toiling away somewhere and quietly working into all hours of the night, and making small, systematic breakthroughs.  Which ultimately led to bigger and bigger breakthroughs.

The problem is, it’s all too easy to get caught up in looking at someone’s success today and then comparing it to your own success today.  Like going into the gym and looking at someone who’s been training for years and is in incredible shape, and then thinking you’re going to get there after 12 weeks of hard work.

Just isn’t going to happen.  Not in this lifetime, anyway.

In my business, I take on maybe one or two copywriting clients a year, but that’s because I want it that way.  I don’t need clients and frankly, I don’t particularly want them, either.  I like writing for myself in my own businesses, and I enjoy publishing, but in the beginning, life was VERY different.

I wrote for anyone and did anything I had to.  But no one wants to hear about things like this — they want to hear about the iPod.  And then they measure themselves against the iPod.

Just remember, when you’re making a comparison of yourself to someone else, make sure you’re comparing apples to apples, and not… grapes to raisins.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

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